


stuck in my head, stuck in my heart

by luxluminaire



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, M/M, Mind Control, Road Trips, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 70,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22414210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxluminaire/pseuds/luxluminaire
Summary: Mark and his daemon have been rescued from five years of imprisonment at the AM by an unconventional knight in shining armor, and together they have embarked on an even less conventional road trip to maintain their freedom. Too bad Damien also happens to be a) a mind manipulator, b) an asshole, and c) completely irresistible. Now Mark must figure out how much he can trust his feelings for Damien as circumstances change and new revelations come to light - and whether his relationship with his daemon can survive everything that he has endured.
Relationships: Mark Bryant/Damien
Comments: 30
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shout-out to [this old ask](https://thebrightsessions.tumblr.com/post/153431824599/youve-read-his-dark-materials-thats-fantastic) that I found on the official TBS tumblr ages ago that saved me the trouble of having to come up with everyone's daemon forms myself.
> 
> Also, in case you're reading this fic and you have no idea what a daemon AU is and/or are not familiar with the His Dark Materials series from which the concept originates, here's a quick primer on daemons: the HDM series of books (and related adaptations) partially takes place in a parallel world in which a person's soul exists in an exterior intelligent animal form called a daemon. Daemons are almost always a different gender from their human, and although they can freely shapeshift between animal forms throughout childhood, they "settle" into a fixed form during adolescence that reflects their human's personality. Daemons are free to physically interact with each other, but it is generally taboo for a human to touch another person's daemon except in intimate circumstances. Also, a human and their daemon cannot be more than a few yards apart from each other without causing extreme pain to both of them.
> 
> So basically, this is the regular TBS universe except everyone has an animal soul companion, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

Mark is mostly convinced that the past few hours have been a very strange dream.

It should be impossible, because he _can’t_ dream in his mental time travel prison. His mind is always awake there, never able to rest no matter how much he wants to shut everything off and sleep like his body has been doing for the past two years. He might have been able to invent a time traveler who has arrived from his present to keep him company, but he doubts that his hallucinations are strong enough to create the elaborate sequence of waking up from the coma and being smuggled out of the AM and into the back of a van by a complete stranger. Which then leads him to the difficult question of which is the worse alternative: conjuring up this weird acid trip of a rescue to distract him from being trapped in 1810, or finally waking up but finding himself in completely unfamiliar territory. 

He reaches out a weak hand to stroke the fur of his daemon, who sits on the floor of the van next to where his rescuer, Damien, has laid Mark across the back row of seats. Times like this are when he wishes his daemon could still change form, or at least that she’d settled into the shape of a smaller creature who could comfortably snuggle up against him on the van’s seats. Not that he minds having a sixty-pound German shepherd for a daemon—he calls her “majestic” and she rolls her eyes and calls him a flatterer—but he still misses when she could make herself small enough to crawl under his shirt so he could feel the comfort of her tiny heart beating against his own.

“You okay?” she asks him quietly, nuzzling against his hand. 

“‘M fine, Rin,” he replies. Her full name is Varinia, but the shortened form of her name suits her better in his opinion, even if the only people besides him who use it are Joan’s daemon and sometimes Joan herself as a relic of the childhood that they spent together.

In the driver’s seat of the van, Damien’s daemon pokes her head up from where the weasel-like form of her body is half-hidden inside the hood of his sweatshirt. Mark has barely heard her say two words since leaving the AM, only knowing that her name is Mena from the introductions that they’d exchanged. He can already tell that her lack of amiable communication has put Varinia on edge. Perhaps it’s her nature as a dog, or a reflection of Mark’s own endless curiosity about new people and things, but Varinia is always quick to offer friendliness to whomever she meets. In the periphery of his vision, he sees her meet Mena’s gaze before the other daemon ducks her head down and murmurs something inaudible to Damien.

“Hey, man, what do you say to us getting off the highway soon and finding a place to crash?” Damien asks him. “I think we’re far enough away to throw them off our trail for now.”

“I mean, considering how I can barely move right now I think I’m pretty much at your mercy here,” Mark replies. “But yeah, I could go for a real bed. You _are_ taking me to a place with a real bed, right?”

“Sure. I’ll find us a nice motel somewhere, and then we can get some rest before we start working on getting you better.”

“Yeah, I feel like most of the time the words ‘nice’ and ‘motel’ don’t go together. And no offense, but what makes you so sure that you can nurse me back to health? This isn’t holding my hand and feeding me chicken soup. This is _coma recovery_.” Two years’ worth of coma recovery, if what Damien said is true, and he still can’t wrap his head around the length of time that has passed. “Unless you’re some kind of doctor who wears a hoodie and drives a sketchy van?”

“No, I’m not a doctor,” says Damien. “But just trust me, okay? I’ll figure something out.”

The certainty in his statement sets Mark more at ease, and even though he has only known Damien for a few hazy hours he _does_ feel like he can trust him. Of course, he cannot do anything to escape if Damien turns out to be a serial killer, which is far from a comforting thought. His only choice is to cling to his instinct of trust and hope that it will be enough to keep him safe from the AM.

They get off the highway at the next exit and pull into the parking lot of the first roadside motel that they come across. “I’ll go get us a room,” says Damien after he has parked the van. “Stay here, okay?”

“I couldn’t go anywhere even if I wanted to,” Mark points out. “Try to get us a room with a jacuzzi and an ocean view?”

“Ha, ha,” Damien replies dryly. He takes the keys out of the ignition and opens the driver’s side door. “Be back in a minute.”

The door shuts with his departure, leaving Mark in the unsettling state of being alone in an unfamiliar place while in a vulnerable position. It figures that he is being left alone again so soon, he thinks bitterly. It was bad enough that in the past he never knew when Sam would next appear or disappear—if she was even real in the first place, and he is now fully realizing the likelihood that she and her daemon have been manifestations of an overactive imagination left in isolation for far too long.

“Is he gone?” he asks.

Varinia rises up onto her hind legs, pressing her front paws against the side of the van to peer out the nearest window. “Looks like it,” she says.

She carefully maneuvers herself to rest her head against the seats that Mark lies on, making it easier for him to reach her with his limited range of movement. He pets her gently, still getting used to both of them having a solid form again. If nothing else, at least it’s less lonely for them now that they can physically comfort each other. Being trapped in a mental state away from their bodies wasn’t quite the agony of the separation of human and daemon, but he hadn’t felt the bond between him and Varinia as strongly until their return to the conscious world.

“Okay, so what the _fuck_ is going on?” he asks, now that he has the privacy to speak freely with her beyond whispers in the dark.

“Don’t look at me,” she says. “I’m still trying to figure it all out too.”

“Well, put the two of us together and maybe things will start to make sense.”

Mark assembles his fuzzy and fragmented memories to try to construct the full narrative of events for how he woke up, hoping that Varinia will help him fill in the blanks as he talks through what he remembers. Even though she _is_ him, the second half of his existence that makes up a whole, each of them is often able to pick up on details that the other one has missed. 

“So this guy—Damien—broke us out of the AM,” he begins. “Because he wanted to ‘help a fellow atypical out,’ right? That was what he said?”

“Right,” says Varinia. “And he knows Joanie. He said she was the one who told him that the AM was holding us captive. But he doesn’t seem to like her all that much.”

Mark recalls how Damien had called Joan a “cold and calculating bitch” earlier. Even in his weakened state, the words bring him a surge of anger. Only _he_ is allowed to insult his sister as far as he’s concerned, and he would never make such a harsh assessment of her character regardless of what she has done in service to the AM.

“You don’t think what he said is true, do you?” he asks. “About how she never seemed interested in getting us out, and that she’ll hand us right back to the AM if she finds out we’re free?”

“It doesn’t sound like her,” Varinia replies firmly. “She would never do something like that. Not to her own brother.”

“Yeah, but…” 

Mark trails off in the same uncertainty that had plagued him while trapped in the past, when questions of whether he could trust her had circled round and round until he began to doubt everything that he thought he knew about her. If Joan could work for the AM for years without telling him, who knows what else she has concealed from him?

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I’m not really sure what to think about her anymore.”

Varinia’s dark eyes contain as much skepticism as a dog can manage, and he’s not sure whether her distrust is directed more at Joan or Damien. Despite his earlier instinctive belief that Damien is someone he can trust, now that he is alone he feels less confident in that assessment. Rescuing him from the AM has to indicate _some_ degree of good intentions on Damien's part, however, even if it comes with the resurfaced question of whether he can trust Joan and the revelation that his biggest comfort in 1810 has likely been a figment of his imagination.

“Do you remember anything about how we woke up?” he asks. “I mean, Damien was there when we came to, but he wouldn’t have been able to find us in the past, right? He didn’t even know that we were stuck in 1810 until I said something about it.”

Faint memories drift through his mind of the last moments he had spent in the expansive meadows and winding roads of the Regency era English countryside. He has a clear mental picture of Sam and Peregrine, her snow leopard daemon, but the images that flow into his mind form a jumbled mess that doesn’t make much sense alongside the other fragments that he has.

“I think Sam might have done something,” he continues. “I know that’s impossible, because she probably wasn’t even there at all, but all of it felt so real. There was something with us getting into the pond near the sheep meadow, and when we were underwater I—I think I could feel her grab my hand. But that doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

“Not really,” Varinia says. “But I think it _did_ happen, because I remember feeling one of Peregrine’s paws against mine too. It was the first time he ever tried to make any kind of contact with me after being shy for so long. And…” Her face screws up in concentration as she struggles to remember what came next. “And when Sam first showed up, she said that she was rescuing us, and that she and someone named Dr. Bright would help us when we woke up. But Damien has no idea who Sam or this Dr. Bright is, so…”

“Either he’s lying, or we had one hell of a coma hallucination.” Mark groans in pain as he tries to move into a more comfortable position. “Ugh, I still feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Do I look as bad as I feel?”

Varinia tilts her head to study him. “Yeah, to be honest? You kind of look like shit. But you’re still the most handsome person who’s spent the past two years in a time travel coma.”

Mark laughs. The action strains at the muscles that his body has not used for a long time. “I don’t think it counts when I’m probably the _only_ person who fits that category. And I still can’t believe it’s been over two years. I must be—” He does the math in his head. “Fuck, I must be twenty-seven or twenty-eight by now. _That’s_ weird to think about. I guess I’ve now officially lost half of my twenties to the AM, huh?” 

At the bitterness that enters his voice, Varinia nuzzles his hand again. She doesn’t look her best either, but overall she seems to be in better shape than he is. His soul must be made of stronger stuff than the rest of him, which he supposes is for the best. He doubts that Mena, who is only a fraction of Varinia’s size, would have been able to carry her to safety like Damien had done for him.

“So what do we think about Damien?” he asks.

“I don’t know. I haven’t really been able to get a good read on him yet,” Varinia says. “But I’ve noticed that Mena seems weirdly closed off. And not in the timid way that Peregrine was. I guess it’s because she and I haven’t had much opportunity to talk, but still. I get the feeling from her that Damien might be hiding something.”

“Yeah, hard to trust someone with a weasel for a daemon, right?” Mark quips.

Varinia sniffs in disdain. “It’s not like we have complete control over what we settle as. And besides, I think she’s a stoat.”

“Okay, smart-ass. Like that makes a difference.”

“I’m just saying,” she says. “You can’t always judge someone by their daemon, anyway. But I _do_ think there’s something shady about both her and Damien. We should be careful.”

Mark sighs. “Just our luck that we end up getting rescued by Mysterious Hoodie Man instead of Prince or Princess Charming, huh?”

“I guess we should be thankful that we got rescued at all.” Varinia lifts her head and rises up to look out the window. “Shh, he’s coming back,” she says, ducking down so that Damien and Mena cannot see her in the darkness. “Pretend like we haven’t been talking.”

“There’s nothing suspicious about us talking,” Mark points out, but he falls silent regardless when the door to the driver’s side of the van opens.

“I got us a room,” Damien says. “I’m just gonna drive us closer to the door so we don’t have to walk as far.”

“Hey, I can’t be _that_ much extra weight for you to deal with.” Between the years of captivity in the Tier 5 basement and the coma, Mark knows that he has lost a non-trivial amount of weight. Although Damien is—well, not exactly _scrawny_ , but certainly not someone who is interested in maintaining a strong physique—he’d still been able to half-carry Mark easily enough during the journey out of the AM’s facilities. “Thanks for looking out for me, though.”

After Damien has parked outside the motel room, he slides open one of the side doors of the van to help Mark to his feet. He feels only slightly more mobile than a sack of potatoes as Damien maneuvers him into a more upright position, reinforcing how far he has to go before he reaches anything close to a full recovery. He watches Mena scamper out from inside Damien’s sweatshirt to climb up to the roof of the van, where she rises up onto her hind legs to survey the parking lot. She gives an assessment of “All clear” to Damien as he slings one of Mark’s arms across his shoulders to keep him upright. Mark supposes the scene _would_ look vaguely suspicious from an outside perspective, but his body hurts too much for him to care.

“All right, buddy, in you go,” says Damien after he has opened the door to the room. “Got a preference for which bed you want?”

“After spending the last few hours lying in the back of a van, I’ll take whatever bed you give me,” Mark replies. “Gotta take the little luxuries while I can, right?”

Damien guides him toward the nearest of the two beds and lays him down with a certain amount of unceremonious force that prompts a warning of “Hey, careful.” After Mark has settled himself as comfortably as he can manage, Varinia climbs up to join him. The bed has more than enough space for both of them, but she presses her body close to him regardless.

“So what’s the plan?” Mark asks Damien where he now sits on the other bed checking his phone. “We crash here for a little while and hope the AM doesn’t find us while we attempt baby’s first coma recovery?”

Damien looks up from where he has been scowling at his phone screen. “That’s the gist of it, yeah. But we should probably stay on the move for the next couple of days to put as much distance between us and the AM as possible. We can’t have them scooping you up again after everything I did to get you out of there.”

Mark tries not to think about how each mile that separates him from the AM also takes him further away from Joan. No matter what Damien claims about her intentions or lack thereof, he is sure that she would know how to help him recover. She has _always_ been the one to take care of him, from the frequent bouts in their childhood when their mother and father were too busy to parent them to his late teenage years when she took precious time out of her graduate studies to help him figure out the unusual nature of his ability. He then remembers how she _hadn’t_ been there for him during the years that he spent in that Tier 5 cell, which makes all of his conflicted feelings about her surge forth once more.

He turns his focus to the man on the bed beside him, fully taking him in beyond the first impression that he has received. Damien is the type of guy who is so thoroughly average in appearance that in ordinary circumstances Mark wouldn’t have given him a second glance if they passed each other on the street, but something about him draws his attention in a way he cannot explain. He is dressed entirely in black, either as an additional means of inconspicuousness for infiltrating the AM or as a holdover from a teenage goth or emo phase, and there’s something generally unkempt about him that suggests that he does not put much effort into looking presentable. Mark is in no position to criticize anyone on that front, of course. Although he has not had the opportunity to catch a glance at himself in a mirror since waking up, he does not doubt Varinia’s assessment of how he currently looks like shit. But Damien doesn’t have the excuse of imprisonment and a coma for his disheveled appearance, and Mark wonders what kind of life he must lead to unhesitatingly stage the dangerous rescue of a total stranger and commit to nursing him back to health hours away from home.

“So, what can you do?” he asks, deciding to start with one of his most pressing questions.

Damien sets his phone down on the bed and turns his full attention toward him. “What?”

“What’s your power? You said that you’re atypical too, so what can you do?”

Damien raises his eyebrows. “That’s kind of a personal question, don’t you think?”

“You clearly already know what my whole deal is, so it only seems fair,” Mark points out. “And besides, once I can use my ability again I need to know what to expect when I share your power. You know, so it doesn’t catch me off guard or anything.”

Damien sighs. “Mental manipulation,” he says in a bored tone that suggests that he is using someone else’s definition rather than his own. “I can project my wants onto others. Whenever I want something from someone, I put the thought in their head, and then they’ll do it.”

Varinia stiffens in alarm, and Mark lays a hand on her back to soothe her. “So like mind control?” he asks.

“More or less. Dr. B. doesn’t like to call it that, though.”

“Huh.” Out of all the guesses that Mark has mentally tossed around about Damien’s ability, he has not expected this particular result. No wonder he hadn’t been caught in his infiltration of the AM if he can influence any guards to let him pass without any questions. “I haven’t heard of _that_ one before. Jesus, the AM would have a field day with you.”

“So there really wasn’t anyone else like me there,” Damien says, disappointed but also sounding as if Mark has confirmed something that he has already been told.

“Nope. Not that I met, anyway, and I’m pretty sure I met everyone who was in the higher tiers while I was there.” The words spill out of Mark’s mouth even though thinking about his time at the AM makes his heart race with the immediate desire to bury those unpleasant memories. “And I saw a lot of fucked up things in Tier 5, but I can’t say I ever encountered mind control or anything like it.”

“My ability isn’t fucked up.” Next to Damien, Mena bristles in a display of the offense in her human’s voice. She climbs up onto his shoulder, glaring at Mark with her beady eyes.

“Hey, chill. I didn’t say it was,” says Mark. “You don’t have to sound so defensive about it, you know. Unless you’ve got something to hide.”

“I don’t. Besides, once you’re well enough for your ability to work again, you’ll be able to use it too. You’ll understand what it’s like.”

“What makes you think that I _want_ to understand what it’s like?” Mark snaps. He’d heard that line of reasoning many times at the AM when the scientists would want him to partner with different atypicals to try using his ability in new ways, even when it would harm himself or the other atypicals in ways that he would never otherwise want. A flash of Director Wadsworth’s sharp gaze and the intimidating form of her jaguar daemon enters his mind, but he pushes it away in an automatic defense mechanism against everything that she did to him.

“Because I’m not like everyone else,” Damien says in an insufferably self-important reply.

No wonder he’d been in therapy, Mark thinks. Even though Joan’s studies and career in psychology have taught him that _everyone_ can benefit from therapy regardless of the current state of their mental health, the cruel thought still enters his mind upon hearing Damien’s egotistical statement.

“Ask him more about Joanie,” Varinia prompts him in a reminder of their mutual curiosity about the doctor-patient relationship between Joan and Damien. She whispers quietly in his ear so that he is the only one who can hear her.

“Are you really one of my sister’s patients?” he asks Damien.

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?” he replies. “What’s it to you?”

“I just think it’s interesting that she’d put up with someone like you. I mean, I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that if you refer to your therapist as a bitch that’s a sign that you should start seeing someone else instead.”

“I don’t call her a bitch to her face,” says Damien.

Mark scoffs. “Yeah, like that makes it better. Maybe you shouldn’t be calling her that at all.”

“Look, man, I don’t know what to tell you,” Damien retorts. “I get that she’s your sister and everything, but maybe it’s time you start wrapping your head around the fact that she’s not the same person you remember. She was willing to let you stay locked up for _years_. You should be grateful that _I_ was the one who got up and did something about it. If it weren’t for me, you would still be unconscious in that basement.”

Mark remembers the look on Joan’s face when she had discovered him in Tier 5 two years ago and how surprise and betrayal had leaked out of every inch of her. The image soon fades away as distrust rushes through him to replace it. The doubt feels out of place, as if someone else has inserted it into his mind. The feeling must be the influence of Damien’s ability, and the intrusion gives him a vaguely sick feeling at his inability to fight against it.

“Sorry. You’re right,” he says. The apology does not feel like he is the one saying it, even though he can feel his mouth forming the words. “And thanks for getting me out of there. I may be in an incredible amount of pain, and I have no idea where I am other than ‘a motel off the highway somewhere,’ but at least I’m finally free from that hellhole.”

“Hey, no problem.” Damien lays a hand on Mena, who remains at his shoulder. “But you should probably get some rest for now. You’ve had a hell of a day.”

Mark murmurs in agreement. Next to him, Varinia is already drowsy, her eyes closed and her head resting on her front paws. His own eyes are heavy with a need for sleep, and his body aches all over. He could definitely use some painkillers right now, but he doubts that Damien has anything strong enough to help him—an oversight, perhaps, if Damien truly does intend to help him recover.

“Night, Rin,” he whispers to his daemon.

She gives an indistinct sleepy reply. She snuggles closer to him, and together they drift into an uneasy slumber, filled with questions about their unlikely rescuer and the future that awaits them.


	2. Chapter 2

The following weeks pass by in a strange haze as Mark and Damien travel from motel to motel, never staying in the same place for more than a few days at a time as they gradually forge a path out of the northeast. It turns out that all of Damien’s knowledge about helping someone recover from a coma comes directly from Google, but overall he has done a fairly good job at nursing Mark back to health. After almost six weeks, Mark has regained most of his basic mobility (although he remains unable to stand or walk unassisted for more than a couple minutes at a time before his muscles give out), and he looks a little less skin-and-bones than he did upon leaving the AM now that he is well enough to eat real food. Much to Damien’s disappointment, he has not yet regained the use of his ability, and Damien’s power remains out of his reach in his inability to latch onto it and use it himself. The only thing he can sense is the push of Damien’s will into his mind, which he is sometimes not even aware of until after the haziness clears and he realizes that he has said or done something outside of his control.

Beyond his physical and ability-related limitations, Mark’s real obstacle is dealing with the boredom of being mostly confined to either a motel room or the van. As much as he likes traveling and being on the move, this is not the road trip that he has always wanted to take. Damien makes for a decent traveling companion now that he has become less of a stranger, but his insistence that they lay low and stay out of sight even when they are hundreds of miles from anyone who might be looking for them leaves Mark restless and impatient. 

“Come on, I’m bored out of my mind,” he complains to Damien as they make their way across a seemingly endless stretch of highway. “You’re not allowed to drag me along on a road trip and then suddenly decide that you’re above playing car games. How else am I supposed to entertain myself until you decide it’s time to stop for food or a place to stay?”

Damien takes a drag from the cigarette that he has been smoking. “I thought by now you’d be tired of ‘I Spy’ and whatever alphabet category game you pull out of your ass,” he replies after turning his head to blow the smoke out of the open window.

“Hey, just because you’re a sore loser doesn’t mean you get to spoil the fun for the rest of us. You should have never agreed to do a ‘songs from musicals’ category if you knew you were going to suck at it. And besides, if you _really_ didn’t want to play, you’d just use your ability to make me not want to play too, right?”

“Oh, so now you’re an expert in how my ability works, huh?” says Damien, and Mark can’t tell if he is teasing him or not. “Despite not even being able to use it after over a month of recovery?”

“I’m doing the best I can,” Mark replies. “These things take time, you know. I’m still sort of impressed that I’m doing as well as I am, considering how I started off barely able to move on my own.”

With the lack of response from Damien, Mark accepts that the conversation is going nowhere. The hot summer sun beats down on him as he leans back in the passenger seat, and the fabric of his pants sticks uncomfortably to his legs. Damien was quick to acquire some clothes for him that are far less conspicuous than the AM’s patient scrubs that he had been wearing at the time of his rescue, but in this weather Mark wishes he had more variety beyond the T-shirts and jeans that Damien has picked out for him. It doesn’t help that the air conditioning in the van is spotty on the best of days, and even with the windows rolled down the interior of the van is stiflingly warm. Sweat beads on his forehead and at the nape of his neck, dampening his hair that has grown longer than he has ever liked it. He pushes aside the thick, dark strands in a largely useless motion.

“What’s this music?” he asks, now that the lull in the conversation has allowed him to pay more attention to the song that is currently playing. Damien usually alternates between the radio and the music on his phone, and although Mark recognizes most of the songs that are more than five or so years old (and often sings along, much to Damien’s annoyance), anything more recent is completely unfamiliar to him. This particular song falls into the latter category, and it contains a vaguely 80s pop sound despite likely being contemporary.

Damien scowls. “If you’re going to shit on me for listening to Carly Rae Jepsen just because ‘Call Me Maybe’ was way too overplayed—”

“Hey, I don’t even know who that is,” Mark points out. “I’ve been in a pop culture blackout since the summer of 2011, remember? And I was going to say that I like it. This song. It’s super danceable.”

“Oh.” A distinct note of surprise enters Damien’s voice. He takes a final puff of his cigarette before flicking it out the window to smolder on the highway asphalt. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“I know it goes against the whole ‘mystery man’ vibe you have going on,” says Mark, leaving aside the incongruous concept of Damien dancing to anything. “But you _are_ allowed to earnestly like things. And you definitely don’t need to defend your taste in music to me. I’m not gonna judge.”

Damien turns up the volume of the music, as if Mark’s approval has given him permission to do so. For a fleeting moment, Mark feels like he is on a normal road trip with a friend, listening to music together while crossing miles of highway. The illusion shatters, however, when his mind drifts back to the hours and days that he’d spent with Sam before Damien showed up as his unconventional knight in shining armor. He and Sam had talked about taking a trip like this if they ever found a way to be in the present together, with Mark teaching her how to drive and showing her so much of the country that she has only seen in the past. She would gladly sing along with him to every nostalgic song that comes on the radio, and he fondly remembers when he would sit under his favorite tree with her, listening to her beautiful, clear voice drift through the meadow as she sang new songs from his favorite artists to him. Memories like these are what make him fully believe that she truly _was_ there with him, because otherwise he must have an _extremely_ active imagination to invent songs that he has never heard before.

“Hey, do you think I could choose the tunes every once in a while?” he asks. “Or at least make requests?”

At Damien’s shoulder, Mena stares at Mark in a display of the curiosity shared between her and her human. Damien has shed his sweatshirt in the hot weather, preventing her from hiding inside it like she usually does, but she still likes to remain close to him instead of riding in the back seat with Varinia. Right now, her gaze feels challenging, as if she is daring Mark to explain himself further.

“I thought you said you liked this music,” says Damien.

“I do,” Mark replies. “But I also want to catch up on any new stuff from some of my favorite bands, if you have it. All this road tripping I’ve done with you has got to earn me at least _some_ music selection privileges, right?” Then, with the hazy thought that it might be a good idea to tell him the full truth, he adds, “When Sam came to see me in the other time, she’d look up songs for me in between her visits and then sing them to me when she came back. And I know she’s probably not real, and I just got so lonely that I made up the perfect woman and blah blah blah, but if I can figure out whether those songs are real, then that will answer the question of whether _she’s_ real, right?”

Damien’s mouth draws into a thin line of irritation at the mention of Sam, and his hands grip more tightly against the steering wheel. “We’ve gone through almost my entire music library by now,” he says. “If you haven’t heard it yet, I probably don’t have it.”

“Yeah, but all of the motels that we’ve been staying at have internet. If I gave you the names of a few songs and artists, you could download them the next time you have wifi access on your phone. Or you’ll try to download them and they won’t exist, I guess. Either way, it’s got to be worth a try.”

“Nah, I think I’ll stick with what I have,” Damien replies. “No use looking up songs that your coma brain made up, right? I don’t want you to feel let down when it turns out that they don’t exist.”

Mark opens his mouth to express that he would rather have the certainty of disappointment than the agony of not knowing the truth. The thought quickly fades with the reminder that maybe Damien has the right idea after all and he should therefore listen to him.

“Yeah, okay,” he hears himself say instead. “You _do_ seem to have pretty decent taste in music from what I’ve heard, anyway.”

The last comment seems to satisfy Damien, and the corners of his mouth turn up into a small smile that transforms his face enough to draw Mark’s attention. The expression then fades, as if he is self-conscious about having shown Mark a flash of happiness. There’s probably at least _something_ to unpack about that detail, but Mark lets it go for now as they drive onward with only the continued sound of the music between them.

After the album has ended and Damien has switched to the radio, his phone vibrates with an incoming call. Mark expects him to answer it, or at least check to see who is calling him, but his hands remain firmly on the steering wheel rather than reaching down to where his phone rests on the console between the driver and passenger seats.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Mark asks.

“It’s probably just a spam call.” says Damien, continuing to ignore the insistent vibrations. “You’ve been with me for over a month now. Have you ever seen me get calls from anyone worthwhile?”

“No, which is actually kind of concerning. Don’t you have friends? Family? Anyone who might want to keep in contact with you while you’re off being a knight in shining armor or whatever it is you think you’re doing?”

“Maybe I’ve been talking to them when you’re asleep,” Damien replies. “You never know.”

Despite the murmur of a suggestion that he should let the subject drop, Mark presses forward with his response. “With the shitty sleep that I’ve been getting lately? Not likely.”

Aware of the risk that he is taking, he pushes against Damien’s desires long enough to reach for the phone. His attempt at a stealthy grab does not go unnoticed, earning him a snapped command of “Hey, don’t touch my phone.” When he does not withdraw his grip, Damien slams down his hand to pry his phone away from him.

“Whoa, eyes on the road, dude,” Mark warns as the van swerves with Damien’s sudden movement. 

Somewhere in the struggle for Damien’s phone, its screen must have tilted enough into Varinia’s line of sight for her to see the name on the incoming call interface. Mark feels her burst of anger through the connection shared between them, which makes his heart beat faster independent of the rush of adrenaline from his attempt to go against Damien’s desires.

“That’s Joan calling you!” she exclaims, and Mark’s stomach swoops as if he has missed a step while walking down a staircase. “Why aren’t you answering, you piece of shit—”

Mena jumps down from Damien’s shoulder and launches herself toward Varinia. Having obediently relinquished his grip on Damien’s phone, Mark turns in his seat at the sound of the scuffle that ensues between the two daemons. Mena does not shrink back from Varinia’s growl or bared teeth, and instead she bravely—or perhaps recklessly—stands her ground against the much larger creature.

“You’d better shut your mouth if you know what’s good for you,” she snarls.

“Or what?” Varinia retorts. She could easily use her size to her advantage and pin Mena against the seat, but Mark can feel her holding back despite the fury that rushes through her.

“Cut it out, Rin,” he says. “It’s not worth it.”

With a sigh of exasperation, she relaxes her intimidating posture. Mena scurries away to return to Damien’s shoulder, although the hostility in her eyes does not fade. When Mark returns his attention to Damien’s phone, he discovers that it is nowhere in sight.

“How long has my sister been calling you for?” he asks. At the lack of immediate response, he prompts him with, “Come on, Damien, don’t screw around with me. Has she been trying to contact you the whole time?”

“It’s not important,” Damien replies.

Mark’s initial instinct is to nod along, but a small part of him recognizes that something is not right about this situation. “Bull fucking shit,” he says. “This is _Joanie_. She’s the most important person in my life.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, his uneasiness grows stronger with the reminder of how distant Joan had become even before the AM kidnapped him. No matter how important she has always been to him, he can no longer trust that she feels the same way about him.

“I’m not stupid enough to answer her calls when she’s probably just looking for a way to track our location to sell us out to the AM,” says Damien. “I’d block her number, but I figure it’s better to know how long she’s going to keep pursuing us for.”

“She doesn’t have to be your enemy, you know,” Mark points out. “I still think you should tell her that you got me out of the AM. She might know how to help me get my ability back. That’s what you want, right?”

“Yeah, but I _don’t_ want her help. She can never understand what it’s like to be us, to be atypical. _I’m_ the only one who can help you with that. We don’t need her.”

“I—” Mark begins, but his objection dies away as soon as he opens his mouth. “You’re right. I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

“That’s right, I will,” Damien says, and it doesn’t cross Mark’s mind to doubt him.

They drive onward. The display of the clock on the dashboard states that it is now the early afternoon, and the quick breakfast that Mark had eaten on the way out of the last town they’d stayed in feels like forever ago. Because Damien often becomes so focused on reaching their next destination that he forgets to stop for food, Mark will have to speak up if he wants to eat in the next hour. 

“Can we stop for lunch soon?” he asks, breaking the silence that has fallen between them. “I’m getting hungry.”

“Yeah, okay,” Damien agrees with surprising magnanimousness. “We’ll get off at the next exit.”

Five minutes later, they have pulled into the parking lot of a Subway, the first restaurant they find where they can quickly get food to go. As always, Damien tells him to stay in the van, a command that doesn’t make much sense now that Mark is in much better health than he was a few weeks ago and is presumably far away from anyone who might be looking for him. He remains powerless to disobey the order, however, and so he does not object to Damien’s departure.

“I can’t believe Joanie has been trying to contact him this whole time,” Varinia says after Damien has left. “We’ve been with him for weeks now. How did we miss the fact that he was getting calls from her?”

“He usually has his phone on silent, doesn’t he? That explains a lot.” Mark turns around in his seat so that he can speak to his daemon face-to-face. “Do you think Joanie knows that we’re with him, or is she just worried because he hasn’t been coming to his appointments with her while he’s been on the road with us?”

“I have no idea.” She sinks down into the back seat, resting her head on her front paws. “My head’s kind of fuzzy right now.”

“Yeah, same here.” Mark has become familiar with this feeling whenever Damien leaves to get food or supplies, as if his brain doesn’t know what to do when he is no longer in the direct range of Damien’s influence. “It’s weird. Sometimes I feel like he and I are actually getting along, you know? Like earlier, when we were talking about music. But then something like _this_ happens, and it’s like… I don’t know what he wants from me.”

“You _do_ realize that he’s probably using his ability to make us like him, right?” Varinia points out. “You’ve seen the kinds of things he uses his ability for. It’s always about making everything more convenient for him. And I’m sure having us like him is at the very top of his list of conveniences.”

“Well, I wish he’d just put in the effort to be our friend like a normal human being,” says Mark. “I mean, I’m not _that_ hard to get along with, right? And I don’t ask for much. Just some entertainment and a conversation with Joanie.” Provided he can still trust her, of course. As much as his heart reminds him that Damien might be wrong about her intentions, his muddled head cannot be so certain.

“I just wish you'd let me bite Mena's stupid head off,” Varinia says.

“Real charming, Rin.”

“Whatever. As long as Damien’s keeping us stuck under his thumb, I get to hate his daemon as much as I want.” She then hesitates before asking, “But _you_ don’t hate him, do you?”

Mark looks out at the building in front of him. The Subway sits in a small plaza of storefronts, nestled between a liquor store and a laundromat. A long stretch of windows next to the door should have given him a glimpse into the restaurant, but the glare from the sun blocks his view. Damien could be doing _anything_ inside to use his ability to scam the minimum-wage fast food workers out of a couple of sandwiches. He knows that Damien’s influence over him has not worn off yet as well. Otherwise he’s sure that he would have fled the van the moment that he and Varinia were left alone, heading straight for the liquor store next door because if anyone deserves a drink right now, it’s him.

“I honestly don’t know what to think about him,” he says in response to Varinia’s question. “Something tells me that I should be suspicious of him, but there’s also a part of me that trusts him. And I’m…”

“You’re not sure how much of it is you and how much of it is him,” Varinia finishes for him.

He nods. “Kind of fucked up, isn't it?”

She murmurs in agreement. “Just… be careful, okay?”

“Have either of us ever been careful?” he teases, trying to use levity to distract from the unease that has settled inside him.

“Hey, there’s a first time for everything,” she quips back, nipping at his hand as gently as an animal at play. 

Damien returns a few minutes later with sandwiches and drinks for them. “I even managed to snag us a free cookie,” he says after passing Mark his food. “The cashier thought I was charming.”

“Does it really count as free when you didn’t pay for any of the food to begin with?”

He bites into the half of the chocolate chip cookie that Damien has given him. It’s about as good as he can expect from a dessert that has likely been sitting in a display case for who knows how long, but he is still firmly in the “all food tastes good” stage of returning to the real world after years of captivity and unconsciousness.

“You couldn’t swing us two cookies, huh?” he asks after he has swallowed.

“Hey, I can’t get greedy, now can I?” Damien replies. “Once you can use my ability, you’ll understand that sometimes it’s better not to push your luck.”

Again with the _understanding_ : the one thing Damien seems to always want from him, and what he claims Joan could never give him. Mark stuffs the rest of the cookie into his mouth to distract himself from the reminder that part of him remains broken despite his strides in recovering from the coma. It’s hard to avoid feeling like a disappointment, especially when his nightmares already prey on those fears when they’re not making him relive everything that the AM has done to him.

The heat has left a stain of half-melted chocolate on his thumb from the cookie. He licks it off and then notices Damien’s eyes upon him. By the time Mark has processed this shared look between them, Damien has already turned away to start the car so they can flee the scene long before anyone makes the connection between the uncomfortably charming man and any cash register discrepancies. By the time they’re back on the highway, Mark has already dismissed whatever moment has passed between them, leaving it behind in the Subway parking lot where it should probably remain.

“You said you wanted to choose the music every once in a while?” Damien asks him eventually.

“Yeah, it would be nice,” Mark replies after swallowing a bite of his half-eaten sandwich.

“I guess I’m open to requests every now and then,” says Damien.

Mark raises his eyebrows at the oddly charitable offer after the heated words that they exchanged earlier. He isn’t sure whether Damien is trying to make nice in response to Mark's accusations or if he is showing a glimpse of genuine kindness, but he does not intend to look this gift horse in the mouth. The desire to request some of the songs that Sam had sung to him remains somewhere deep inside him, but he cannot reach it. It’s as if it has been blocked from his mental access, and Damien’s ability is preventing him from giving voice to what he truly wants.

“Do you have any of The Killers?” he asks instead. “Or was it just a dream I had that I was singing along really loudly to ‘Mr. Brightside’ and you were pretending to be annoyed even though deep down I know you can’t resist my amazing singing talents?”

“Sure, do you want me to put on that whole album, or what?” Damien replies, ignoring Mark’s jokingly immodest words.

“Hell yeah. Nothing like a little bit of high school nostalgia, right?”

Rather than passing his phone to Mark to let him find the music in his library, Damien balances his phone in his grip while he continues to steer the van. With the idle thought of what else Damien could be hiding from him, Mark returns to eating his sandwich as familiar basslines come through the car stereo.

Neither food nor music can fully distract him, however, and as they leave even more miles of highway behind them, he cannot forget the unease that lurks in the back of his mind about Damien and what lies ahead.


	3. Chapter 3

By the end of August, Mark is thoroughly sick of motel rooms.

Because he and Damien never stay in the same place for more than a few days at a time, the rooms all blend together into a never-ending sequence of generic decor and less than comfortable beds. He would do anything to spend at least one night in a semi-nice hotel, but despite Damien never paying for any of their lodgings, whenever Mark proposes the idea he brushes him off. “Motels are less conspicuous,” Damien claims, and Mark can never think of a rebuttal to that argument while in his presence.

So here he is, lying on yet another motel bed in a small town off the highway somewhere in… Illinois? Iowa? One of those midwestern states that starts with an “I.” The TV is on, but no one is paying attention to it. Mark has felt a headache forming for the past hour or so, and the last thing he needs is to be squinting at the TV while wishing for better natural eyesight in the absence of contact lenses or a pair of glasses. Instead he keeps the TV on as background noise, preferring the inanity of bad sitcom reruns to total silence.

Varinia snuggles close to him as he engages in his latest tactic of confronting his boredom: drawing with the motel-supplied pen and notepad that he has found on the bedside table. Damien has refused his requests for a camera, saying that he doesn’t want his picture taken despite Mark’s assurances that he will only photograph their environment, and so instead he must satisfy his artistic urges through other means. A pen and paper isn’t his preferred medium, but years of doodling in the margins of notebooks have made him proficient in drawing unerasable lines with confidence.

He reaches into the recesses of his memories from 1810 to find his mental images of Sam and Peregrine. He recalls a moment with the two of them under the tree where they’d often stop to rest during their walks through the meadow, and so he decides to recapture that scene on the page. Sam had been sitting at the base of the tree, leaning against the trunk with her arm around Peregrine’s large yet gentle form as they talked in the easy way that their conversations often flowed. Mark hears the echo of her voice telling him about how Peregrine had been late to settle, forcing her to endure extra years of jokes about how surely he was going to settle as a falcon because of his name. Mark in turn had shared how he’d spent a decent portion of his late childhood convinced that Varinia would end up as some kind of bird after years of her favoring an avian form to fly alongside Joan’s daemon, Phoebus, who settled as an osprey. The memory of the small smile that crossed Sam’s lips at his story feels so real, and so he tries to create a facsimile of the expression in his drawing.

The motion of his pen stops as he finishes the details on Sam’s face and moves on to adding the details to his outline of Peregrine. He struggles to remember the pattern of speckled spots on the snow leopard’s fur. Although he knows that he can improvise an approximation, he cannot bring himself to do so. Inventing an aspect of Peregrine’s appearance feels like an acceptance that the daemon and his human have only existed in his imagination, and he cannot shake the feeling that he would be letting Sam down by fully accepting that she has never existed.

Mark tears the piece of paper off the top of the notepad, leaving the rest of the drawing unfinished. Varinia lifts her head to glance at what he has cast aside. 

“It looks good,” she says, quietly enough to not attract Damien and Mena’s attention. “What was wrong with it?”

It’s not reality, he wants to say, but he cannot get the words out. “Just decided to try something different instead,” is all he says, hoping that she understands at least a fraction of his frustration.

As he looks around the room for additional inspiration, his eyes settle upon Damien lounging on the other bed. He has been absorbed in his phone since they entered the room, with Mena curled up comfortably against his neck. Something about the sight pulls Mark’s attention despite its utter mundaneness, and so the tip of his pen moves across the page in decisive lines to capture the scene. Because Damien has been so paranoid at even the slightest possibility of having his photo taken, Mark is careful to leave the details vague in his rough sketch, but the unmistakable depiction of the stoat daemon immediately gives away his subject.

“I’m going to go grab us some dinner,” Damien says eventually as he rises from the bed. “There’s a burger place that’s not too far from here, a local joint. I figured it would probably be better than McDonald’s, right?”

“Hey, to be fair, I’m pretty sure the last fast food burger place we stopped at was a Wendy’s,” Mark replies. “Can you get me a cheeseburger and an extra order of fries?”

“Sure thing, pal.”

Damien slides his phone into his pocket and retrieves the keys to the van. Mena walks across the bedspread to peer across the space between the beds in her curiosity about what Mark has been working on. Mark tears the drawing off the notepad and hides it out of sight before she can get a look at it. Varinia glares at the other daemon in a challenge to back off, which Mena obeys with a scowl before scampering away to join Damien at the door.

“I’ll be back soon,” says Damien. “Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Mark mutters in response. He has certainly _tried_ to leave in the weeks since he has grown strong enough to walk across the length of a motel room and stand at the door, but no matter how much he wants to turn the handle, the lingering effects of Damien’s control always prevent him from doing so.

After the door has closed with Damien’s departure, Mark collapses back against the bed with a sigh. Next to him, Varinia’s irritation at Mena has transformed into what he can best describe as the canine version of a shit-eating grin, as if she has done something that she can’t wait to tell him about now that they are alone.

“I know that look,” he says. “What did you do?”

“I may or may not have sneaked a look at Damien’s phone when we first got to the room and saw his password as he was unlocking it,” she replies.

“Wait, seriously?”

Mark sits up straighter against the pillows. Ever since finding out that Joan has been trying to contact Damien, he and Varinia have been scheming to steal Damien’s phone and call her, but he has not expected Varinia to achieve such quick success in her part of the plan. 

“Yep.” The mischievous gleam has not yet left her eyes. “And I don’t think he or Mena know that I saw him typing in the password. It’s ‘2288,’ by the way.”

“Huh. That’s a weirdly symmetrical pattern of numbers.” Mark weighs the password in his mind as he commits it to memory. “2288, 2288… Oh God, you don’t think it’s his birthday, do you? February 2nd, 1988? He _would_ make his iPhone password something predictable like that.”

“It makes sense,” says Varinia. “We’ve always figured he’s probably around the same age as us.”

“I wonder how many Groundhog Day jokes he gets.” Realizing that he is getting away from the point, he adds, “But we’re still out of luck when it comes to actually getting a hold of his phone. He never lets it out of his sight and puts it under his pillow when he’s sleeping so we can’t get to it.”

“Well, we’ll just have to hope that we get lucky and he eventually slips up,” Varinia replies. “Until then, let’s try not to forget the password.”

“Yeah, I’ve got it.”

Mark rubs his temples, wincing at the ache that has been growing ever since he and Damien arrived at the motel. The headaches have been recurring ever since he woke up from the coma, and he doesn’t know whether they are a side effect from being unconscious for so long or a symptom of whatever has gone wrong with his ability, like his brain is exhausted from repeatedly trying and failing to grab onto Damien’s power. He’s sure that Joan and her infinite scientific theories would have a few ideas on that front, which is yet another reason why he needs to talk to her sooner rather than later.

“Mind going into my bag and getting the bottle of aspirin for me?” he asks Varinia.

She jumps down from the bed, sympathetic to his pain that she feels through their bond. Mark does not have many belongings at the moment, only the necessary clothes and toiletries that Damien has acquired for him, and they all fit into a single duffel bag that he never bothers to unpack. Varinia noses her head into the bag to retrieve the aspirin and returns to the bed, carrying the bottle in her mouth and then depositing it into his hand.

“Thanks,” he says.

He shakes out a couple of pills and swallows them with a gulp of water from the half-drunk bottle left over from his and Damien’s last stop a few hours ago. He settles back against the pillows, stroking Varinia’s fur as he waits for the relief that the aspirin will give him.

“At least the headaches aren’t getting worse,” she says.

“Doesn’t stop them from sucking, though.”

She snuggles closer to him in support. One of her paws brushes against the sketch of Damien and Mena that he has cast aside. She looks at the drawing with unmistakable disapproval, and Mark immediately knows that she has not taken offense at the quality of his art but rather at his choice of subject.

“What?” he says to her. “Am I not allowed to sketch the only other person in the room with me when I’m bored?”

Varinia huffs out an exasperated breath. “Do we really want to get into this right now?”

“Might as well. Damien won’t be back for at least ten or fifteen more minutes, and who knows when we’ll get our next chance to speak freely about him?”

“Okay.” Varinia hesitates and then begins with a cautious overture of “You know I love you and care about you no matter what, right?”

Mark groans. “Great. Getting the intervention treatment from my own daemon.”

“This isn’t an intervention,” she insists. “I’m just a little concerned about what you feel for him, and I don’t think you’re being careful enough about it.”

“What I feel for him?” Mark asks, raising his eyebrows. “He’s an entitled asshole. What more do I have to say?”

“Don’t be stupid about it. I know when you’re into someone. Lord knows why you’re attracted to _him_ of all people, but…”

“I’m—” Mark sputters in disbelief. “I’m _attracted_ to him? Look, I know I haven’t gotten laid in five years, but I promise you I’m not _that_ desperate.”

“Mark.” Varinia lays a paw on his hand. “I just want you to be careful. His ability—”

“Yeah, I know. He can get inside my head and make me do and feel whatever he wants, and we don’t know whether these feelings are mine or his.” The response comes out more snappish than Mark intends. “Sorry. It’s just…” He recalls the scattered snapshots of the not-entirely-terrible moments that he has shared with Damien over the past several weeks. They have now caught each other's gaze several times in something that seems more than casual eye contact, and it makes Mark wonder if Damien does indeed have a genuine interest in him beyond his curiosity about his ability. “It’s complicated, okay?”

“I know, I know. Just—”

“—be careful,” Mark finishes for her in a repetition of her earlier warning. “I will.” Then, scratching behind her ears and keeping his tone teasing, he adds, “I guess I’m not really surprised. You haven’t liked half the people I’ve been with, anyway. You could be a _little_ easier to please, you know.”

Varinia scoffs in her offense. “That's not true. Name _one_ person that I haven’t liked.”

“Uh, let’s see. There was Amanda… God, what was her last name, from freshman year? Amanda Santos.”

“Her daemon was a leopard gecko! I was terrified of squishing him half the time. It’s not like I had anything against her personally.”

“Yeah, whatever. What about Scott McClellan?”

“Hey, _you_ were the one who ended things with him. I thought he was…”

“He was what?” Mark prompts her when she trails off into silence.

“He was okay, I guess,” Varinia replies begrudgingly. “He could’ve been nicer about that one time when you almost had a panic attack during sex.”

“Yeah, I would’ve liked to see _him_ try to stay calm if he could feel a pyrokinetic somewhere in the building during a time like that. Do you have any idea how hard it is to concentrate on giving a handjob when you’re afraid that flames will burst out of your hands any second and set everything on fire while also exposing that you’re a freak with a really fucking weird superpower? _Anyone_ would have panicked.”

Varinia nuzzles against him in sympathy. “You know what Joanie would say about you calling yourself a freak.”

“Yeah, I know.” Mark exhales a deep sigh, remembering how many times Joan has discouraged him from speaking negatively about his ability despite all of the difficulties it has brought to his life. “But my point is, you’re _incredibly_ picky when it comes to the people I’m interested in. I’m not sure if it means that deep down I think I need to have better standards or what, but—”

“I liked Sam,” Varinia says quietly.

“Well, yeah, it’s easy to like someone that we made up,” he replies, trying to maintain a sense of realism about the situation as much as it makes his heart ache.

“That’s not fair to her, you know,” Varinia reminds him.

“I know.”

He reaches for the discarded sketch of Sam and Peregrine and runs a finger across the depiction of her face and the pen strokes of hair that stream past her shoulders. Briefly, he wishes that she was the one driving him across the country after having risked her safety to smuggle him out of the AM, and that he had never met Damien at all.

He folds the piece of paper together with the sketch of Damien and Mena and slides both drawings into one of his pockets. Varinia rests her head against his chest, and he pets her while his eyes flutter shut in his exhaustion from the day.

“I’ve been thinking about something else, too,” she begins eventually, her voice breaking through the background noise from the TV

“Don’t tell me you’ve thought of _another_ thing to give me an intervention about,” Mark grumbles.

“No, no. It’s—Well, remember when we first woke up, and you properly introduced yourself to Damien when he brought us out to the van?”

He opens his eyes and turns his full attention to her. “Yeah?”

“He seemed surprised when you said your name is Mark Bryant. At first I thought it was because he didn’t realize you were related to Joanie, but then almost immediately afterwards he said that she was the one who told him about us. So it’s not like it should have been a shock for him to hear that your last name is Bryant, right?”

“You and I were both really out of it at that point, Rin,” Mark reminds her. “You might be misremembering things. And I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”

“Where I’m going,” she says, “is that I think that maybe he was expecting your last name to be something else. Have you noticed how he only ever calls Joan ‘Dr. B.’ and never ‘Dr. Bryant’? What if that’s because she’s actually the same Dr. Bright that Sam mentioned, and Damien didn’t realize it’s not her real name so now he’s calling her ‘Dr. B.’ to cover all of that up? And he thought your last name would be ‘Bright’ too, which was why he was so surprised to hear ‘Bryant’ instead?”

Mark frowns, trying to wrap his head around what Varinia is suggesting. “I don’t know, it’s a bit of a stretch. You’re operating on a lot of assumptions.” He ticks off each one on his fingers as he goes through them. “One, that Joan is using a fake last name, which you don’t have further proof of. Two, that Damien is calling her ‘Dr. B.’ for a reason other than because he’s a condescending asshole. And three, that if she _is_ using a fake name it just _happens_ to be the same one mentioned by someone who we don’t even know is real. I don’t know, it’s… It’s a lot to swallow.”

“But you’re willing to take Damien at his word that we invented Sam and Peregrine,” Varinia points out. “Why can’t you believe this?”

The accusatory tone in her voice sets him on edge, but he does not have time to unpack the implications of her words. “Well, okay, let’s just say that Joan _is_ in fact the Dr. Bright that Sam said would help us,” he says. “Why didn’t Sam tell us that she knows her? We told her all kinds of stories about Joan from when we were kids. She couldn’t have thought that it was a coincidence that her therapist and my sister have so many similarities. I mean, she fits a pretty narrow profile, right? I can’t imagine there’d be more than one woman named Joan living in the Boston area who is also in her early thirties, has an osprey daemon, and knows about atypicals. So why didn’t Sam say anything?”

“I—” Varinia’s confidence deflates as she sinks down to rest her head on Mark’s chest again. “I don’t know.”

“Well, whether it’s true or not, I doubt we’re going to get any answers about it from Damien,” Mark says. “I guess we’ll have to wait until we can get his phone and actually talk to her ourselves.”

Varinia murmurs in agreement. “I hope that happens sooner rather than later.”

The sound of the TV drones on as they wait for Damien’s return, and even after flipping through every channel twice Mark finds nothing that interests him. He briefly considers turning off the TV, but the prospect of being alone in a room with no background noise brings him an immediate rush of unease that borders on panic. There’s nothing like complete silence to remind him of the bone-crushing isolation that he’d felt in his cell in Tier 5, and he already has to relive those horrors enough when his nightmares take him back to the AM.

He’s not sure whether he is relieved when he hears the door open with Damien’s arrival, although his hungry stomach welcomes the brown paper bag of food that he carries with him. Damien has also made a stop at a nearby Wal-Mart in addition to getting dinner, judging by the label on the plastic bag that he carries with him as well.

“Did you get anything interesting at Wal-Mart?” Mark asks as Damien closes the door behind him.

“Not really,” Damien replies. “Just a few little things. You used up all of the disposable razors, so I had to get a new pack.”

“Well, we can’t all pull off the sexy stubbled look like you can,” says Mark. “Since you won’t let me go get a haircut or help me cut it myself, I figure the least I can do is keep myself clean-shaven so I don’t look like a total bum.”

Realizing what has slipped out of his mouth, he reaches for the bag of food to distract himself from how he has indirectly called Damien sexy. “Oh, sweet, you remembered the extra order of fries,” he says, hoping that his earlier comment hasn’t registered with Damien. He reaches into the styrofoam container that he has opened and stuffs a couple of French fries into his mouth. They’re still warm, fried golden brown and seasoned with salt and ground pepper. “Oh my God, these are so good.”

He passes the bag to Damien so he can take out his own meal. As they both eat, Mena watches Mark intently in a way that sets him on edge, as if she is trying to figure him out. Mark does his best to ignore her gaze while he eats his cheeseburger, but Varinia meets her eyes with matching intensity until the other daemon curls up on the bed in her waning interest.

“No stimulating dinner conversation tonight, huh?” Mark asks as he retrieves a napkin from the bag to wipe the grease off his fingers.

He refers to Damien’s latest tactic in his attempts to reawaken Mark’s ability: questioning him about every minute detail of how his power works and what the AM wanted from him. Mark does not _want_ to discuss most of these topics, but he has little choice in the face of Damien’s persuasiveness. These conversations almost always happen during or after their meals, as if Damien thinks that Mark will be more amenable to his inquiries when he has food in his stomach.

Damien takes a couple of fries from Mark’s takeout container without an inquiry of permission. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know. I’m just saying that lately this has been the time of day when you go into full curiosity mode about every bad thing that's happened in my life.”

“Not _every_ bad thing,” Damien replies.

“Well, we’ve covered the parental rejection, the kidnapping, and the illegal experimentation.” Mark counts each one of them on his fingers. “That’s pretty much all of the greatest hits.” He takes the last few bites of his burger and then says, “And yet the only personal thing I’ve found out about you is that your parents abandoned you when you were thirteen, and you’ve been an asshole ever since.”

He realizes too late that his words border on provocation. Damien’s eyes narrow in annoyance, and it won’t be long before he retaliates by probing deeper into what Mark would normally be reluctant to share. Next to him, Varinia gives an admonishing murmur of “Should’ve kept your damn mouth shut,” quiet enough so that only he can hear her.

“Tell me about the other people who were in Tier 5 with you,” Damien suggests, right on cue. “Come on, you said you wanted something to talk about. Talk about them. What abilities did they have?”

By now Mark is often able to recognize the difference between when Damien is consciously pushing his ability rather than passively using it, and the dilation of his pupils and the clenched fist around the napkin that he has been using indicate that this is a deliberate effort. His curiosity breaks through Mark’s mental walls of defense, which crumble brick by brick until his thoughts grow fuzzy with the sudden shift in priority that nothing is more important than giving Damien the answers that he wants.

“I don’t know. Most of their powers weren’t all that special, actually,” Mark replies, the words spilling out of his mouth with ease. “It was just the ways they used them that were dangerous. Like, you’d never guess how many fucked up things you can do with telekinesis. And even if you hadn’t used your ability to hurt anyone, if you’d done anything shady or illegal that could be tied to being atypical, there was a good chance you’d be dumped into the basement as fuel for the AM’s experiments. It didn’t always matter how rare or interesting your ability is.”

Damien raises his eyebrows at the AM’s ruthless stance, but he chooses not to comment on it for now. “But what about people like you who weren’t criminals? They just thought you were too useful to let go?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Mark replies. “That was definitely the case with me, and there were a few other people who didn’t seem to have done anything wrong either. Or at the very least they weren’t actively dangerous even if they had a few black marks on their record. Like Camille, the time traveler that I was working with when I got trapped, she was pretty okay even though the AM brought her in for using her ability to blackmail people. They just thought it would be useful to have someone who could spy on the past for them, and so they were more than happy that they had an excuse to keep her locked up for as long as they—No, stop, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

A brief moment of clarity gives him the strength to push against Damien’s desire to hear more. He is unable to put up a fight for more than a few seconds before the attempt at rebellion immediately gives way to a stronger compliance.

“And then some of the others… I don’t know, I never knew for sure why they were there,” he says. “Not everyone was willing to share their life story, and you couldn’t always believe the rumors you heard. There was this one woman who was a… I think they called her a frequency kinetic? She could control radio waves, light spectrums, stuff like that. And I don’t know what her deal was, only that she’d been at the AM for like five years before I got brought in and that she _really_ hated Wadsworth. I mean, we all hated Wadsworth, because whenever she made an appearance we knew that someone was in for a bad time, and usually it involved me. But Helen, the frequency kinetic… I don’t know, the way I saw her look at Wadsworth sometimes, it was like pure hatred. There was a rumor that she’d once used her ability to attack Wadsworth, but I never believed that. I can’t imagine Wadsworth letting her guard down long enough for that to happen.”

Damien listens to his words with keen interest despite having no connection to the people and events that Mark describes. “And what about some of the other abilities?” he asks. “You’ve mentioned telekinetics, a time traveler, and a frequency kinetic. That couldn’t have been everyone.”

Mark sighs wearily, already suspecting why Damien is making these inquiries. “I’ve already told you a thousand times, there was no one with an ability like yours there. Nothing even came close. Which is why I’m sort of surprised that the AM never came after you. You must have been keeping a low enough profile to not attract their attention.”

Damien’s mouth twists in his renewed irritation. “So you’re saying that I deserve to be locked up like you were?”

“No, of course not,” Mark replies, unsure if he should be offended by the accusation. “Jesus, how heartless do you think I am? Sure, you can be a bit of a jerk sometimes, but _no one_ deserves to go through what I did.”

“I don’t know, sometimes when she was really pissed at me I felt like your sister was one step away from sending me to her old buddies over there and letting them sort me out.”

“She would never—” Mark begins. He stops there as familiar doubt winds its way through his thoughts, reminding him that despite her shock when she had discovered him in that Tier 5 cell, Joan probably knows _exactly_ what supposedly dangerous atypicals have to endure at the AM. 

“She was perfectly happy to let you stay locked up,” Damien reminds him. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if at least _some_ part of her thought that I would have deserved it.”

His words bring Mark a fresh ache at the reminder that he may no longer know the person whom Joan has become in his absence. “Do you think she thought that _I_ deserved it?” he asks Damien quietly, not sure if he wants to know the answer.

“I don’t know, man. But I think the fact that I’m the one who rescued you and not her pretty much speaks for itself.”

The last remainder of Mark's good spirits leaks out of him like a deflating balloon. Varinia’s suspicion that Damien knows more about Joan and her secrets than he lets on remains somewhere in the back of Mark’s mind, but once again he cannot access the words to give voice to them. Instead he is unable to trust his own thoughts, and feeling like his own mind is a stranger to him fills him with a deep emptiness that makes him wish he was anywhere else but here.

“I’m going to bed,” he says.

Damien raises his eyebrows. “It’s not even six-thirty.”

“Well, then I’m taking a nap. Same thing, really.”

He lies down, not even bothering to get under the blankets, and rolls over to face the wall. Damien’s initial silence suggests that Mark has successfully established that he does not want to continue the conversation, but then he hears a hesitant inquiry of “You okay?”

“Just tired,” is all Mark can bring himself to say. He hates how Damien is thoughtful enough to ask him how he’s doing but lacks the self-awareness to realize that he is partially responsible for Mark's rapid downswing in mood.

“You didn’t even finish your fries,” says Damien.

“You can have them. I’m not hungry anymore.”

He hears a rustle of movement followed by the quiet sound of Damien chewing. “You’re safe here, you know,” Damien says. “The AM and Dr. B. can't get to you. I’ll protect you.”

From anyone else, the statement would have been a heartwarming comfort, and a large part of Mark _does_ want to believe him. “I know,” he replies, but beneath his compliance he wonders why he even bothers to entertain the possibility of having feelings for this man.


	4. Chapter 4

September brings two disruptions to the usual routine that Mark and Damien have settled into over the course of the summer. The first is the inevitable death of the van, which breaks down in a grocery store parking lot in the middle of Kansas. Rather than going through the trouble of getting the van fixed, Damien instead chooses to steal a car from the lot. Although Mark has done his own share of less-than-legal things in his lifetime, he still feels intensely uneasy as he watches Damien convince a man laden with grocery bags to hand over the keys to his SUV. Having a car is better than being stranded, of course, but Mark worries about the dangers that come with driving a stolen car even though they flee the scene long before the man comes to his senses and reports the theft. Although Damien can easily use his ability to talk his way out of anything, it only takes one bad run-in with the police to cause everything from the past few months to fall apart in the worst way.

The second disruption comes a few days later when they arrive at their latest motel room, and it leads to something far more complicated than traveling in a stolen vehicle.

“Fuck, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Damien says in irritation upon opening the door to their room.

Mark is still getting out of the car, humming a song that he’d heard on the radio but doesn’t know the name of. “What is it?” he asks, grabbing his duffel bag from the back seat and slamming the door shut.

When he receives no response, he walks closer to Damien to investigate. He peers through the open doorway into the room, where at first nothing seems out of the ordinary. He then follows Damien’s gaze to see a solitary double bed, and all the pieces click into place.

“There must have been a mistake,” Mark says. “You’ve requested two beds every other time, right?”

Damien’s only response is a huff of irritation. Without bothering to set down his bags, he closes the door and storms off toward the motel’s office. He does not issue a verbal or mental command for Mark to stay at the car, and so he takes the opportunity to follow him. He struggles to keep up with Damien’s fast pace, having not yet regained his pre-coma stamina.

By the time he has caught his breath, Damien is already in conversation with the employee at the front desk. Mark hangs back from the scene, staying close enough that he can hear what they are saying without being drawn into the proceedings. Because of all the times that Damien has demanded that he stay out of sight, he remains unaccustomed to being out in public beyond quick trips to the bathroom at rest stops and occasional nighttime walks under Damien’s supervision. Even when there is no one else around except for Damien and the desk worker, Mark still feels oddly exposed, as if at any moment someone is going to ask him what he’s doing here.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we currently don’t have any other rooms available,” the employee is saying to Damien. Her daemon, a red panda, sits next to the computer on the desk, and he eyes Damien and Mena with cautious interest.

“Oh, I’m sure you can move a few things around.” The previous annoyance in Damien’s voice has given way to the persuasive charm that sets Mark on edge only because he knows where it comes from. “Why don’t you check again?”

“Of course, sir,” the woman says with placid compliance. After she has checked the computer, she merely shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but it looks like nothing will open up until tomorrow. I can move you to a different room after those guests have checked out, but until then I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.”

Damien’s hand clenches more tightly against the edge of the desk. “Move me to a different room _now_ ,” he demands.

“I’ve already told you, sir, there are no other rooms with two beds that are available for tonight. I can see about offering you compensation for your trouble, but for now I’m going to have to ask you to step aside. There’s another person waiting in line behind you.”

Mark glances behind him, not realizing that she is referring to him until Varinia nudges his hand with her nose. “Oh, uh, I’m with him,” he says, nodding to Damien.

Damien lets go of his grip on the desk with a frustrated sigh. “Forget it. Thanks for nothing,” he mutters as he walks away. Mark offers the woman an apologetic look before following him, utterly confused at what has transpired.

“Was your ability not working?” he asks Damien once they are out of anyone’s earshot. “I mean, you were able to get us the room just fine, right? You did your usual thing?”

Damien does not respond to Mark’s inquiries, nor does he turn his head to look at him. The only eye contact he gets is from Mena, who watches him from where her head pokes up from inside Damien’s sweatshirt. Her black eyes show a mix of curiosity and concern that suggests there is more happening than what appears on the surface.

“Damien,” he ventures again. “Is there something wrong with your ability?”

Damien opens the door to their room. “Just shut up and stay here,” he grinds out.

“Okay,” Mark replies, puzzled yet ultimately obedient.

The door slams shut with Damien’s departure. Mark sets down his bag and sits on the solitary bed. His firm desire to stay in the room indicates that Damien still possesses some degree of control over him, despite his lack of success at the front desk.

“Wonder what all of that was about,” says Varinia.

“No fucking clue.” Mark lies down on the bed to rest his already tired legs. “But he definitely seemed a little freaked out, right?”

Varinia murmurs in agreement as she climbs up to snuggle next to him. “Call me crazy, but maybe he wasn’t able to get us a different room because he didn’t actually want it.”

Mark lifts his head to look at her. “Great, I see it’s ‘Rin’s got a conspiracy theory’ time again.”

“Hey, if I’m thinking about it, that means that you must have thought about it too,” she points out. “Anyway, his ability only works when he really wants the thing that he’s trying to get someone to do. So—”

“What, you’re saying he secretly _wants_ to be stuck sharing a bed with me?” Mark says. A thrill rushes through his veins at the prospect of sleeping next to Damien, their bodies pressed together under the blanket and—nope, he’s not going to let himself go down _that_ road right now. “Then why wasn’t he immediately cool with it instead of putting on a show of being mortally offended at having to share a bed with another dude?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was just trying to act in accordance with how we expected him to react.”

Mark raises his eyebrows. “And you think you have him all figured out, huh?”

“Hell, I barely have _you_ figured out half the time,” Varinia teases him. “I don’t think I’ll ever know what’s going on in _his_ head.”

“That makes both of us, then.”

Varinia jumps down from the bed and crosses the room to peer out the window. “He didn’t take the car,” she notes. “I wonder where he went.”

“He’s probably taking a walk to cool down from whatever tantrum he was about to have,” Mark replies. “Hey, maybe if he’s gone for long enough, his ability will wear off and we can get out of here.”

He intends for his comment to be mostly a joke, but beneath Damien’s lingering demands his own desire to leave pushes feebly against the intrusion into his mind. He knows he won’t get farther than the door, however, before he forgets what he wanted in the first place and gives up. The dejected way that Varinia returns to the bed indicates that she shares his lack of hope on that front.

He turns on the TV to pass the time until the door opens with Damien’s return. He expects him to come back empty-handed, slinking into the room with his hands jammed into his pockets like he usually does when he has been off by himself without getting food or supplies. Instead he carries a box of pizza, which he sets down unceremoniously on the bed.

“I didn’t know you were getting food,” says Mark.

“Yeah, well, there’s a pizza place down the street,” Damien replies. “I figured I might as well get something for us while I was out.”

“Hey, I’m definitely not complaining.”

Mark reaches for the pizza box. It’s not quite a normal time to eat dinner yet, but he and Damien didn’t have a real lunch while they were on the road beyond some snacks that they’d picked up at a rest stop. When he opens the box, he discovers to his disappointment that Damien has only bothered to get a basic cheese pizza. There’s nothing wrong with simplicity, but Mark hates how boring Damien often is with his food choices. He takes a slice regardless, carefully lifting it out of the box to prevent any cheese or grease from dripping onto the bed.

“Are you going to have any?” he asks Damien.

Damien merely stands in the middle of the room, staring blankly at Mark. Then, as if snapping out of whatever trance he is in, he moves toward the bed. He sits down on the opposite side and places the pizza box between them to function as a barrier. A whiff of cigarette smoke enters Mark’s nostrils at Damien’s proximity, which further answers the question of what he has been doing besides getting food.

They eat in silence, and Mark takes advantage of the lack of conversation to figure out how to proceed from here. On the surface, there is nothing _wrong_ with sharing a bed with his traveling companion of the past two months, but when that person is Damien, the situation becomes much more complex. He cannot see how being in even closer quarters than usual with a mind manipulator can end well for him, and he silences his thoughts that insist upon jumping to conclusions that he should not entertain.

“I can sleep on the floor if you want,” he offers.

Damien scoops up a dangling clump of cheese that is falling off his second slice of pizza. “What?”

“You know, with the whole bed thing. If you don’t want to share, I can take the spare pillows and one of the blankets and sleep on the floor.”

Damien chews, not saying anything at first. After he has swallowed, he replies, “Nah, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Mark blinks in disbelief. He’d expected Damien to be fully on board with the idea and that the proposal has come from a desire that he has forced upon him. Either he has stumbled into an alternate universe where Damien went out for a cigarette and was replaced by a far less selfish version of himself, or Varinia is right and he actually _isn’t_ as upset about this arrangement as he initially seemed. Mark isn’t sure which possibility he prefers when both of them put him on edge.

“All right, then,” is all he says.

The rest of the afternoon and evening passes by surprisingly uneventfully despite the unusual circumstances. Mark and Damien remain on opposite sides of the bed as if an invisible barrier divides them, and neither of them are brave enough to cross it. Out of the corner of his eye, Mark notices Damien stealing an occasional glance in his direction, which leaves him with the paranoid thought of whether he is planning something. Damien doesn’t even launch into his usual routine of interrogation masked as curiosity while they eat the rest of the pizza a few hours later. Although Mark should be relieved at not having to make weak attempts to defend himself against Damien’s questions, the radio silence is equally disconcerting.

“Are you going to bed?” Mark asks a little before midnight when Damien comes back from the bathroom. At Damien’s indistinct noise of affirmation, he adds, “Okay, good night.”

Damien turns off the lights and TV and gets into bed with no further words. The silence and darkness creep into Mark’s consciousness, and at first he only distantly acknowledges how fast his heart is beating before he comes back into himself and realizes how close he is to the edge of panic. He fumbles in the dark for the TV remote and turns the TV back on, keeping the volume low to not wake Damien. The glowing light of the screen strains his eyes, but it does the job to prevent him from sinking deeper into heart-pounding terror.

“Rin?” he whispers to his daemon. Usually she sleeps on the bed with him, snuggled close as they drift off to sleep together, but tonight there is no room for her. Unlike Mena, who is small enough to curl up on Damien’s pillow, she has instead been relegated to sleeping on the floor.

“I’m here, Mark,” she assures him, knowing his anxieties without him having to speak them aloud.

“Good,” Mark murmurs.

He stretches his arm down over the edge of the bed, and she lifts her head to nuzzle against his hand in comfort. Exhaustion fills his body, but his mind refuses to slow down enough to let him rest. He closes his eyes and focuses on the sound from the TV, waiting for it to lull him into slumber as it distracts him from his suffocating thoughts. As he lingers on the edge of sleep, however, he knows it will only be a matter of time before he falls into yet another nightmare that he is powerless to fight against.

Predictably, Wadsworth is front and center when his dreams take a concrete shape. He is back in one of the AM’s basement labs, strapped to an observation table in what was always a classic Wadsworth move when dealing with her experimental subjects. She stands over him with a hungry look in her eyes, as if he carries inside him something that she has spent years searching for.

“Come on, Byron,” she says. Even though in reality she eventually shifted away from using that name, in his dreams she always calls him by the first name that he hates. “You’ve done this before. It’s just some simple telekinesis.”

“Where’s Rin?” he demands, looking frantically for his daemon. Without her in sight, he feels like part of his body has been cut away, and a profound ache spreads through him at being apart from her. His stomach turns as if he is about to throw up, but he forces down the bile that rises in his throat and grits his teeth through the pain.

“Your daemon is fine,” says Wadsworth. Her own daemon stands next to her, his jaguar tail flicking back and forth as he stares at him with his intense gaze. “You’ll see her again after you complete this trial.”

Mark stares at the objects on the table in front of him. They have inexplicably taken the shape of a row of paper cups with a generic pastel floral pattern on them: the very same cups that he had unsuccessfully tried to move with his mind in Joan’s first grad school apartment what feels like a lifetime ago. He takes a deep breath and tries to tip over one of the cups, but he cannot get a strong enough hold on the ability to use it. A gasp of pain breaks his focus as the strain on the connection between him and Varinia becomes more pronounced.

“I can’t,” he says. “It hurts too much. I—I can’t do this without her.”

“Yes, you can,” Wadsworth insists. “Don’t be difficult, Byron. Otherwise I won’t be able to guarantee your sister’s safety.”

“What—” Mark begins, but then the dream shifts. Through the observation window in front of him, he sees Joan staring back at him in terror where she is restrained in a chair. Wadsworth now stands on the other side of the glass, looming over Joan like a shadow. Her daemon has pinned Phoebus to the ground, and the osprey cries out in an expression of pain that is reflected in Joan’s face.

“Use your ability, or else I’ll break her fingers, one by one,” says Wadsworth.

Mark reigns in his focus and tries again, reaching toward the objects on the table with his mind in the same way that he has done countless times while working with a telekinetic. _Come on, move_ , he thinks with desperate determination, but the searing ache of Varinia’s absence prevents him from cooperating with Wadsworth’s demands no matter how badly he wants to.

“You’re not even going to try?” Wadsworth asks with a tsk of disapproval. “I guess that proves how much you don’t care about your precious Joanie.”

“Mark, please—” Joan begs.

Wadsworth ignores her pleas and grabs hold of her hand, pulling one of her fingers back until it snaps. Joan’s scream pierces straight through Mark’s heart, and his mind desperately reaches out with the strength of his heightened emotions to make something, _anything_ , move in the room. Nothing happens, and so he is left helpless to stop the horrible scene in front of him.

“I don’t have to keep going, you know,” Wadsworth says. “You can make this stop at any time. You don’t have to keep failing her like this, Byron.”

“Please," Joan pleads again, her cheeks wet with the streaks of teardrops. “Please, Mark, just do what she says.”

“I can’t.” A sob of frustration heaves in his chest. “I can’t, she’s right, I’m a failure—”

The dream shifts again, and the room beyond the glass goes dark. Two familiar figures have appeared on either side of him, looking down at him with disdain.

“Mom?” he says in disbelief. “Dad? What are you doing here?”

“You’re such a disappointment, Mark,” his father says. His voice is distorted and echoing despite his presence next to him. “We could have had a normal son who isn’t a danger to society. But instead we got _you_.”

“I’m not dangerous,” Mark insists. “I’d never hurt anyone. You _know_ that.”

“Maybe it’s for the best that you ended up here,” his mother adds. “It’s what people like you deserve. Now you don’t have to be a burden to us or Joan anymore.”

Mark shakes his head desperately. “No. No, that’s not true. I’m your _son_. I don’t deserve any of this.”

“All Joan ever wanted to do was help you,” says his father. “And this is how you repay her? You can’t even do what you’re told to keep her from getting hurt. You’re useless.”

“No, I’m not!”

The words rip their way out of his throat as he remembers Joan’s screams. His breaths come in halting sobs as he squeezes his eyes shut against the flow of his tears. When he opens his eyes, his parents have vanished, and neither Joan nor Wadsworth have reappeared. Without Varinia next to him as his constant comfort and companion, he feels more alone than he has ever been in his life. He can barely feel her presence anymore, as if their connection now only exists as a single thread where there was once a tight bond. The only thing he can do is call out for her in desperation, lost in his deep spiritual pain until it becomes too much for him to bear.

He then wakes with a sharp gasp. His heart pounds a frantic rhythm in his chest, and when he rubs his eyes he finds a dampness that reflects the tears he had shed in his dream. Varinia has already rushed to his side, and she whimpers at the fresh images of the nightmare that they have shared. He holds her trembling body close, burying his face into her fur as his tears continue to fall.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he soothes her through his gulping sobs, even though he needs as much reassurance as she does. “We’re not there anymore. We’re…” He almost says “safe,” but in truth he has not felt fully safe in a very long time.

He can hear Joan’s voice in his head gently reminding him to breathe. She’d always been so good at helping him calm down whenever he was hurt or scared, and he wishes more than anything that she could be here to comfort him—not the untrustworthy and manipulative version of Joan that Damien has tried to present to him, but rather the kind and loving sister whom he remembers. He takes her imaginary advice regardless, focusing on the conscious effort of his inhales and exhales as his breathing steadies and his heartbeat slows.

Eventually, he has calmed down enough to fully sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed. He sniffles quietly and wipes his nose with his hand before glancing over his shoulder in the darkness to see if Damien is awake. He lies unmoving, facing away from Mark with Mena snuggled close to him on his pillow. Not wanting to wake them, Mark slowly rises to his feet. The mattress and bed frame creak with his movement, but neither human nor daemon stirs at the sound. Varinia casts a wary look at the sleeping forms they have left behind before padding closely alongside Mark into the bathroom, unable to bear being even a few feet away from him after their nightmare.

Mark flicks on the light and closes the door behind him, squinting at the brightness until his eyes adjust. He turns on the faucet at the sink and splashes some water onto his face. When he lifts his head to look at his reflection in the mirror, he is hit with the now-familiar feeling of not quite recognizing himself. He would have thought that by now he’d be used to his current appearance, but his first instinct remains that he is staring at a stranger.

He dries his face with a towel, hating how his eyes are still red-rimmed from the tears that he has shed. Knowing that the tap water is safe to drink, he fills a cup and then sits down on the closed lid of the toilet. Varinia rests her head on his knee, and he strokes the back of her head as he drinks. No words are exchanged between them, each of them innately understanding their shared desire to push the nightmare out of their mind. Talking through everything would probably be the healthier option, but together they are far from the prime example of good decision-making.

A knock on the bathroom door soon startles him into alertness. Varinia lifts her head, her body tensing in alarm as she lets out an instinctive growl.

“Hey, Mark, you okay?” Damien asks through the door.

The sound of his voice does not set him more at ease. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he replies. “Go back to sleep.”

Damien ignores his attempt to push away his concern and opens the door without an inquiry of permission. The light from the bathroom throws strange shadows upon the dark room beyond where he stands in the doorway.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Mark demands in indignation. “I could have been taking a shit or something.”

“You, uh, you sounded like you were freaking out when you were in bed earlier,” says Damien. “I wanted to make sure you were—”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Mark insists. “I don’t need you to babysit me anymore. If I want some alone time, I can have it.”

“You don’t have to be a dick about it,” says Mena from her customary position at Damien’s shoulder. Her input surprises Mark, who has rarely heard her speak to him directly. “We’re just trying to help.”

Mark scoffs. The subtle push of Damien’s will into his mind breaks through his irritation, prompting him to revisit the images that he would rather forget. He takes another sip of water and then sets the cup down as his words spill out beyond his control.

“It was the worst nightmare that I’ve had in a while,” he says. “I mean, I know I’ve been having them a lot. But this one… Well, it definitely covered all the greatest hits and more. Mostly things that happened at the AM, but there was some other stuff mixed in too.”

“What kind of stuff from the AM?” Damien asks. He probes further in his curiosity, paying no attention to Mark’s attempts to resist him. “The experiments that they did on you?”

“Yeah. They used me for more than trying out combinations of powers, like what I told you about before,” Mark explains. “They were also interested in the connection between a person’s ability and their daemon. With me, their big thing was using separation to try to increase my range for picking up other people’s abilities. It was never anything that would cause any permanent damage, at least not physically, but...” His heart tightens at the painful memories that flood him. Varinia nuzzles his hand in reassurance, reminding him that she is here and nothing will ever separate them again. “They’d put me and Rin in different rooms and have me try to use the ability of an atypical who was in range for her but out of range for me. But it didn’t work most of the time. Who knew that it’s _really_ hard to focus on using your superpower when you’re in a lot of pain, right?”

“Jesus,” mutters Damien. He looks more shocked and disgusted than Mark has ever seen him. He holds Mena close where she has crawled into his arms in alarm at the thought of being forced to be apart from her human.

“Hey, _you’re_ the one who’s making me talk about it,” Mark points out. “If you don’t want to hear about the bad shit, then don’t pull it out of me.”

“What about the other stuff from the nightmare?” Damien presses him despite his objections. “The stuff that wasn’t about the AM?”

“Oh, you know. Just the standard ‘your parents think you’re a disappointment and they’d probably be relieved that you spent almost five years locked up for being what you are.’” He then frowns at what he has admitted. “Fuck, why do you want to know about any of this? It’s none of your business.”

“I’m only trying to help,” says Damien. “It can’t be good for you, keeping all of that bottled up.”

“Ugh, you sound just like Joanie.” Except she never pushed him like Damien does, if only because she knows that ultimately he is much better at being open with his feelings than she is. “Is this your attempt at commiseration?” he adds, remembering what Damien told him during his singular moment of being open and honest about himself. “Do you want us to be ‘rejected by our parents because we’re atypical’ buddies or something?”

“I want us to understand each other.”

Damien’s statement sounds more like “understand _me_ ,” with the usual self-importance that twists the situation to make it all about him. Briefly, Mark wonders if Damien has nightmares about the parents who abandoned him, but he cannot wrap his head around the concept of Damien being in any position of vulnerability. 

“Yeah, well,” he retorts, “there are better ways to understand someone than forcing them to talk about their nightmares. Your ability can’t always get you _everything_ you want, you know.”

Damien gives a snort of humorless laughter. “Now who’s the one who sounds like your sister?”

“Maybe if you paid more attention in therapy, you’d be better at not being an asshole.” The pull of Damien’s will increases with a demand for an apology. “Sorry. I guess I’m still a little shaken up. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”

“No worries, man,” replies Damien, satisfied with Mark’s contrition as if he has failed to realize that it is not genuine.

He moves as if he is about to leave the bathroom, but then he hesitates with an uncertainty that Mark has rarely seen from him. Mena jumps out of his arms and approaches where Varinia sits at Mark’s feet. Varinia regards her with suspicion at the unexpected initiative from the usually closed-off other daemon.

“Do you, uh, want a hug or something?” Damien asks.

Mark raises his eyebrows. “What?”

“That’s how it works when people are upset, right? You tell them that everything will be okay and offer them a hug?”

“Christ, Damien, do you really not know how to comfort someone?” Mark isn’t sure whether he finds this new detail disturbing or profoundly pitiable. “Are you _that_ bad at being a person?”

Damien scowls. “Look, do you want it or not?”

There's something strangely earnest in the way that he looks at Mark—not demanding or smug in the knowledge that he can get whatever he wants without lifting a finger, but rather as if he genuinely cares about Mark’s well-being. Damien must truly be uncertain in his intentions, Mark realizes, because he does not feel his body moving against his will to find an embrace in his arms. Although he knows that he should proceed with caution, he cannot deny that it has been a long time since he has last hugged someone who isn’t his daemon. He’d wanted to hug Sam, of course, but he cannot hug someone who has only ever existed in his imagination. Damien, on the other hand, is very much real as he stands in front of him with that stupid earnest look on his face. The intimacy-starved part of Mark would be a fool to refuse him.

“Yeah, okay,” he agrees.

He rises to his feet and takes a few steps toward him. Damien’s movements are awkward and stilted as he puts his arms around him, like he has forgotten how to perform the simple action of a hug. The clumsy embrace does its job, however, and in this moment Mark forgets about everything that Damien has done to keep him under his control. A fond warmth spreads through his body as he breathes in the scent of stale cigarette smoke and a trace of generic motel soap, hardly daring to believe that he is experiencing the closeness that he has longed for from another person for so long.

“I’m just gonna go back to bed,” Mark says after they have let go of each other. “Sorry for waking you up.”

He then notices their daemons curled up together on the floor in the first display of friendly contact between them that Mark has witnessed. Mena catches his eye from where she rests her head against Varinia’s front paws and glares at him, as if she is silently daring him to comment on the unexpected gesture of tenderness. When Mark does not say anything to her, her expression softens as she nuzzles closer to Varinia. He gives them a few more seconds before mentally calling out to Varinia to follow him out of the bathroom.

When he reaches the bed, he lies down and pulls the blankets comfortably around him. The mattress groans with the added weight as Damien joins him. Damien does not give him any words of goodnight, and so Mark lies there in silence, staring at the ceiling while trying to process what has happened. Is he _that_ starved for intimacy that a simple hug is enough to further ignite the complicated feelings that he has for Damien? How can he be sure that all of this isn’t Damien’s influence and that what he feels might not even be his own attraction at all? Mark knows that he is playing a dangerous game by thinking that Damien is interested in anything other than the potential of his still-broken ability, but that does not stop him from entertaining the idea that Damien’s genuine, if awkward, act of support indicates that he isn’t _entirely_ a selfish bastard in spite of his usual behavior.

“Damien?” he whispers into the darkness. “Are you still awake?”

Damien grunts in affirmation. When he does not offer any further response, Mark presses onward, fully aware of how his actions remain entirely his own rather than being steered in the direction that Damien wants.

“Thanks for checking on me tonight,” he says. “You could have just gone back to sleep and ignored me. But you didn’t, and... I don’t know, it was actually kind of decent of you.”

Damien rolls over to face him. “You don’t have to sound so surprised when you say that,” he replies.

Mark sighs wearily. “It’s a compliment, you dick. Take it or leave it.”

“Oh,” is all Damien says. A trace of surprise enters his voice with the single word, as if he is not accustomed to hearing a genuine compliment that he has not forced out of someone. 

He wets his lips nervously, and Mark hates how his gaze is drawn to the subtle movement. Where his mind has previously been clear, he now feels the edges of Damien’s influence, rendering his thoughts hazy and indistinct. He moves closer to him on the bed, and their lips meet in a mutual motion. The kiss is too brief for Mark to fully wrap his head around it before Damien pulls away. He—well, he doesn’t _hate_ it, even though part of him knows that he is not fully in control. Maybe he even _wants_ it, independent of Damien’s desires, and that is why his mind is not pushing back.

“What the hell was that?” he asks after the fog has lifted enough for him to realize that yes, Damien _did_ kiss him, and he has no idea what to do with this development.

Damien does not say anything. For a moment there is only the held gaze between them and the quiet sound of their breathing, and then Damien rolls over to face away from him once more. Mark can only blink in disbelief, too taken aback to respond to how Damien has chosen to pretend that the past couple of minutes never happened.

“Well, okay then,” he mutters into the silence that he receives.

He shifts position to lie on his back and touches his fingers to his lips, still feeling the ghost of Damien’s kiss upon them. His heart pounds in his chest with the dual senses of exhilaration and trepidation that accompany the first kiss that he has shared with someone in five years. Whatever he feels toward Damien was easier to deal with when it was only a bad idea that he never planned on acting upon, instead letting it quietly die as something that he is better off without. Now the attraction has made itself into something more concrete, even _reciprocated_ , which only adds to the emotions that swell like a balloon in his chest. It could pop at any moment, whenever this strange glimpse of a more caring version of Damien inevitably gives way to his usual asshole self, but for now he holds onto it for as long as he can until they have both fallen asleep with the first light of dawn.


	5. Chapter 5

When Mark wakes up a few hours later, he feels like he hasn’t slept at all.

Sunlight streams through the gap in the closed curtains, and a quick glance at the clock on the bedside table tells him that it is eight in the morning. The room is quiet except for the sound of traffic on the nearby road, with the TV having been turned off at some point during the night. Now that the world around him has woken up, Mark doesn’t need any extra noise to drown out the silence, and so instead he merely lies there in bed, forcing himself to face the morning no matter how much he wants to go back to sleep.

Next to him, Damien and Mena remain asleep, and Damien has rolled over onto his stomach with the side of his face pressed into his pillow. Fuzzy memories from a few hours ago drift into Mark’s mind as he struggles to pick out what was real and what was a dream. Had Damien _really_ kissed him here on the bed as the cherry on top of a weirdly sympathetic sundae? Or had he fallen asleep immediately after leaving the bathroom and merely dreamed that addendum to an already strange sequence of events?

With a quiet groan, Mark stretches his limbs long across the length of the bed before rising to his feet. He walks over to his bag and pulls out clean underwear, a pair of jeans that have a few more days of wear left in them before they need to be washed, and a T-shirt from a couple days ago that a quick sniff confirms is probably okay to wear again. He then goes into the bathroom with Varinia at his side in a slightly more emotionally stable repetition of a few hours ago—if he can call his current state of mind “stable” in any sense of the word.

“Okay, what the hell happened last night?” Varinia asks after they are behind closed doors.

“Jeez, just the question I want to answer first thing in the morning,” he replies. “Besides, I was hoping you could help me out with that one.”

“Well, Damien kissed you, first of all,” she says. “And you didn’t do anything to stop him.”

Mark turns on the shower and begins to undress. “Well, it’s not like I had much of a choice.” Then, realizing that his response sounds like Damien was taking advantage of him, he adds, “I mean, I’m pretty sure I wanted it too, independent of his influence. But he definitely _was_ using his ability, whether he meant to or not.”

“Then how do you know that you wanted it?”

The question pierces straight through him as he steps into the shower. “I don’t know, I just… I know what his influence feels like by now. And it _was_ there, but it wasn’t like it was totally overriding what I wanted. Does that make any sense?”

Varinia makes a skeptical noise but does not say anything, leaving Mark to mull over everything alone. When he closes his eyes against the spray of water coming from the shower head, he becomes lost in the memory of Damien’s lips against his own, and his thoughts immediately stray into how badly he wants _more_. These fantasies have to be his own desires, he concludes. Damien is unable to use his ability while sleeping, and he has been asleep long enough that the lingering effects from a few hours ago have worn off by now. Whatever Damien has started with the kiss, Mark’s mind is now finishing, with his ill-advised attraction and starvation for affection filling in the rest of the blanks.

“If you’re gonna jerk off while thinking about him, I swear to God...” says Varinia.

“What? No way.” Even when Mark has managed to find the privacy and right state of mind to jerk off in recent weeks, it has mostly been to make sure that everything is still working rather than a means of satisfying his thoughts about any specific person, _especially_ not Damien. “Besides, let’s not forget how cozy you got with Mena here on the bathroom floor. I don’t think you have any room to criticize me for how I feel about him.”

“Letting Mena comfort me doesn’t count as me liking her _or_ Damien,” Varinia replies with a self-righteousness that reminds him of Joan.

“Yeah, okay,” Mark says doubtfully.

He takes his time in the shower, a luxury that he treasures even after two and a half months of freedom. His mind jumps back and forth between the nightmares and Damien, and he's not sure which is the worse topic to dwell on. The AM and his parents define his past as the ghosts that refuse to stop haunting him, while Damien is his present and future, his rescuer who manipulates him but also kisses him softly in the night. It’s a lose-lose situation, as far as shower thoughts go.

“Hey, Mark,” Varinia says as he is rinsing shampoo out of his hair and wishing for the thousandth time that Damien would let him get a haircut.

“What?”

“We could make a break for it, you know. Finally get the hell out of here.”

Mark pulls back the curtain to poke his head out of the shower, expecting to see her on the verge of laughter at her ludicrous suggestion, just as he had jokingly proposed the same idea yesterday. When she looks back at him with sincerity from where she sits on the bath mat, he frowns at her unexpected seriousness.

“Oh my God. You’re not kidding,” he says.

“Think about it. Damien and Mena are asleep. Their influence on us wore off a while ago. You could take the keys to the car and drive away without looking back. I mean, it’ll definitely take a while to get back to Boston if that's where we want to go, but…”

Mark wants to share her enthusiasm and the hopeful light in her eyes, but reality brings him crashing down to Earth as soon as he considers the possibility. “Yeah, it’s a great idea in theory,” he replies. “But in case you’ve forgotten, I don’t have any money. And unlike Damien, I can’t just _will_ people into forgetting that I haven’t paid. Not to mention that I could get busted for driving a stolen car without a valid license—”

“Since when have you been concerned about what’s legal?” accuses Varinia. “There might be a few logistics to work out, but we could do it. We could go home.”

Surely she must realize how loaded that last word is when they have not had a true home for five years. Mark can think of at least half a dozen ways to respond to her, but the reply that ultimately leaves his mouth is “And I’m sure it’s pure coincidence that you’re suggesting this almost immediately after he kissed me, right?”

Varinia's eyes narrow in suspicion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That ditching him the morning after he and I had a genuine moment would be the exact kind of dick move that _he_ would do?”

“Whatever. He did a thousand dick moves first. It’s not like he wouldn’t deserve it.” At Mark’s silence, she adds, “Ugh, I can’t believe this. One kiss and suddenly you’ve forgotten how we can’t trust him as far as we can throw him.”

With a sigh of exasperation, Mark closes the shower curtain and lets the water continue to wash over his body. He doesn’t want to shut out his daemon like this, but looking her in the eye during this conversation only reminds him of how much he cannot trust his own thoughts. By all accounts, he _shouldn’t_ care about Damien while his mind is completely clear from the influence of his ability. By now, however, Damien’s determination to make Mark like him has repeated itself in his head enough times that he is starting to believe that the feeling is his own, and the two wants have become so thoroughly tangled that he no longer knows what is truly his.

“Mark,” Varinia prompts him.

He turns off the shower and pulls back the curtain to reach for his towel. Still avoiding her eyes, he dries off a little before stepping out of the shower stall.

“I just think it’s something that we shouldn’t be impulsive about,” he says, well aware of how much this response contradicts his usual strategy of acting first and thinking later. “Our priority should still be finding a way to contact Joan. If she’s willing to help us, getting home will probably be a lot easier. As long as we can still trust her, of course,” he adds as an afterthought.

“We can,” Varinia replies firmly.

Mark finishes drying off and gets dressed, taking his time to prolong his return to Damien’s complicated company. Aware that after a certain point he is only hiding from the inevitable, he braces himself and opens the bathroom door. He half-expects Damien to be lurking outside, but a quick glance at the bed confirms that he is still asleep. All of the air expels from Mark’s lungs in a long breath of relief at the prospect of his mind remaining his own for a little while longer.

The reprieve only lasts for about half an hour before Damien wakes up. He rolls over onto his back as Mena nuzzles him in a good-morning greeting. When both of them notice that Mark is watching, Mena scurries away from the tender gesture. It’s an odd thing to be self-conscious about, as if Damien is ashamed of the natural act of being affectionate with his daemon, but there are many things about him that Mark will never understand.

“Morning,” Mark offers from where he sits at the small table in the corner of the room. Gesticulating with the box of cereal that he has been eating from, he adds, “Want some Cheerios?”

Damien mutters something inaudible in response. He reaches under his pillow to retrieve his phone from its usual hiding place and then checks for any notifications that he may have received overnight. Clearly nothing about the world outside this motel room interests him, because he soon sets down his phone with a scowl as Mena climbs up to his shoulder to whisper something to him.

“Looks like you already took a shower,” Damien finally says.

Mark runs his hand through his still-damp strands of hair. “Yeah. Bathroom’s all yours.”

With no further words to him, Damien takes some clothes out of his bag and heads into the bathroom, taking his phone with him before Mark can hope that this time he will accidentally leave it behind. Mark exchanges a silent look with Varinia, and she immediately understands his meaning and crosses the room to approach the closed bathroom door. After listening intently for any conversation that Damien and Mena might be having, she shakes her head at her inability to hear anything through the door.

“It was worth a try,” says Mark.

Damien emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later wearing what Mark swears is the same outfit he wore yesterday. Neither of them have expansive wardrobes right now, but at least Mark tries to mix and match his limited selections into something more varied than Damien’s usual all-black combinations of T-shirts and jeans. Mark’s eyes are drawn to him as he searches for where he’d left his sweatshirt last night, and the weirdly endearing way that he smooths down his messy hair after pulling the sweatshirt over his head distracts Mark in mid-motion of reaching into the box of Cheerios.

“Hey, man, you want to pass the cereal over here?” Damien asks as he sits down at the end of the bed.

Mark withdraws his hand from inside the box and crosses the room in compliance with the request. Damien takes the cereal from him without a word of thanks, and Mark suddenly has trouble remembering everything that he wants to say to him.

“Do you, um,” he begins, pushing through the fog that fills his mind. “Do you want to talk about last night, or…?”

The haziness lifts, as if Damien is opening the door a crack in his curiosity about where the conversation is heading. “What about last night?” he asks.

“I mean, you kissed me,” Mark says. “That’s kind of a big fucking deal.”

Damien’s initial silence does not give him much confidence in a response that he will like. It was stupid to even bring any of this up, he decides. He should have learned by now that having anything resembling an honest conversation with Damien is impossible. 

“You were having a rough night,” Damien finally says with no further explanation.

“Yeah, but that’s not a reason to make someone kiss you,” Mark points out. “The hug, that I can understand. But I honestly can’t think of a reason for you to kiss me that _doesn’t_ involve you secretly caring about me in your own twisted—”

“I didn’t _make_ you do anything,” Damien interrupts him. “I wasn’t using my ability at all.”

Something about his claim doesn’t seem right when Mark compares it to what he remembers. The uneasy feeling fades before he can put his finger on what is wrong about it, and instead he has no choice but to believe the version of events that Damien is presenting to him.

“It _was_ pretty nice,” he admits. “The kiss, I mean.”

“Well, good.”

A hint of a smile turns up the corners of Damien’s mouth as he reaches his hand into the cereal box. With the dim acknowledgement that there is nothing more to say on the topic, Mark returns to his chair and sits down. Varinia rests her head on his lap, frowning in concentration as if she is trying to solve a difficult puzzle in her head. He strokes the back of her neck soothingly, even though he shares her faint sense of discomfort about the conversation that has occurred.

“Are we staying here for a few more days, or are we moving on right away?” he eventually asks.

Damien looks up from where he has been checking his phone again. “What does it matter to you?”

“I just want to know whether I have to look forward to being stuck in here or stuck in a car,” Mark replies. He leaves out the “with you” part of his response, because Damien’s company is the one constant that he has been able to rely on lately, for better and for worse.

“I drove for like six hours yesterday,” Damien says. “We’re taking a break.”

Varinia lifts her head in surprise, a sentiment that Mark shares. He’d previously assumed that Damien would want to leave this place as soon as possible to avoid any additional nights of them awkwardly lying next to each other while ignoring the charged tension between them, but after last night he has realized that maybe he does not understand Damien’s motivations at all.

“Are we changing rooms?” he asks. “The woman at the front desk yesterday said that she might be able to swap us into something with two beds, right?”

“I told her to forget it.” Damien takes out another handful of cereal before setting the box aside. “She probably doesn’t even remember that there was a problem. There’s no use drawing attention to ourselves again.”

“Another night of being bed buddies it is, then,” says Mark, with all of the light humor of someone pretending not to care about how sharing a bed with Damien has led to a kiss that he doesn’t know what to do with. “Anything else on the agenda today, or are we just going to sit here and stare at each other?”

Damien chews and swallows his mouthful of Cheerios. “God, you’re worse than a little kid. Always needing to be entertained.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you never take me anywhere fun,” Mark replies. “I swear we’ve been stuck in small-town hell for weeks. I’m not asking for any tourist attractions or anything, but we could at least go to a decent-sized city every now and then.”

“Yeah, well, cities mean there’s more of a chance of an AM facility being nearby,” Damien says. “Which means—”

“Which means we’d have to be more careful because there’s a bigger risk of getting caught, blah blah blah.” They have had this conversation at least half a dozen times, almost as much as the “Mark has never previously encountered anyone else with Damien’s ability” conversation. At this point, Mark isn’t sure which of the two he hates more. “Trust me, I know how important it is to lie low and not attract attention. I had to do it for years after I found out I was atypical, and the AM still ended up getting to me anyway.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you have me with you this time, huh?” Damien says with the overt charm that reminds Mark that he _does_ owe him everything for keeping him safe from the AM.

The rest of the day passes by uneventfully in comparison to everything that happened in the pre-dawn hours of the morning. The combination of a lack of sleep and a minor headache leads Mark to nap through most of the afternoon, intermittently dozing until Damien comes back to the room with some Chinese takeout for a combination of a late lunch and early dinner. Mark is unsure whether he is more relieved or disconcerted at the lack of probing conversation as they eat, especially when it comes with a whisper in the back of his mind that he should forget that the kiss ever happened.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Damien eventually says not long after the sun has gone down.

The words are more of a command than an invitation, but Mark does not need the added influence of Damien's ability to get him up onto his feet. He puts on his shoes and is the first one out the door, glad to have an excuse to get some real fresh air. He’d thought that the novelty of being outside would have worn off by now, but he still looks forward to these moments when Damien lets him take short walks under the cover of night. Varinia shares his enthusiasm, rushing ahead of him while staying close enough to not pull at their connection.

“Jesus, Rin, could you slow down a little?” Mark calls out to her. “I’m not gonna last more than five minutes if you keep up that pace.”

She slows down to let him catch up, and Damien is not far behind. At the latter’s approach, her tail stops wagging and her expression darkens, as if she has only just remembered that these walks require his company.

“We’ll circle around the building a few times,” Damien says. “We shouldn’t go too far away in case you get tired.”

He reaches into the front pocket of his hoodie to pull out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Mark hates how his eyes are drawn to Damien’s lips as he puts a cigarette between them and lights it. During the time that he has spent with him, he has become ninety-five percent certain that Damien only smokes to fit whatever his image of “cool” is: more of a performance art than an unhealthy habit. As he watches Damien take a drag from the cigarette and exhale a long breath of smoke, he cannot deny that there is something… not exactly _cool_ , but rather _mesmerizing_ in how the smoke dissipates into the nighttime air as they walk.

Damien hesitates before wordlessly offering the cigarette to Mark. He takes it, feeling the slight moistness of where Damien’s mouth has touched the tip when he brings it to his lips. He inhales a deep breath and immediately coughs and grimaces at the reminder that he’s _really_ not a fan of tobacco.

“Jeez, if you’re not a smoker you could have just said so,” Damien says as Mark passes the cigarette back to him.

“It’s not that. It’s just that it’s been a while since I’ve smoked anything, and I mostly stuck to weed back in high school and college. I can probably count the number of actual cigarettes I’ve had on one hand.”

Damien brings the cigarette to his lips again. Mark tries not to stare at the perfect shape of his mouth and instead turns his gaze straight ahead as they continue to walk. He waits for Damien to give a reason why he has invited him out here, but he receives nothing but silence and a haze of smoke. It’s nothing more than a normal evening walk for them, then: no ulterior motive, only an excuse to get out of the motel room, have a cigarette, and allow Mark some gentle exercise.

“Hey,” Damien finally says to him in a gruff overture.

“Yeah?” Mark prompts him when the single word does nothing but hang in the air between them, not yet transforming into anything significant.

“Did you really mean it when you said it was decent of me to check on you after you woke up from that nightmare?”

“Did I—” Mark cannot hold back his breath of laughter at the ridiculousness of the question. “Of course I meant it. Why would I lie about something like that?”

Damien takes another drag of his cigarette. He looks away from Mark as he exhales the smoke, and Mena burrows deeper into his sweatshirt in a sign of the self-consciousness shared between them.

“Sometimes,” he begins, “my ability makes people do things even when I don’t realize that I’m making them do it.”

Mark remembers the single image of vulnerability that Damien has given him: a scared teenager dealing with the reality that his words have enough power to forever push away his parents. Mark often wonders if there is a part of Damien that has never moved on from being someone who uses edgy behavior to hide how alone and afraid he is, but perhaps that is too charitable of an explanation for why Damien is the way he is.

“Well, you don’t need to worry,” says Mark. His mental clarity reinforces how the reassurance is entirely his own and not Damien’s attempt to fish for compliments via mental hijacking. “I _do_ think you’re capable of being genuinely decent sometimes, believe it or not.”

He chances a look in Damien’s direction. Damien has stopped walking, staring at Mark with an unreadable expression on his face as Mena continues to hide inside his sweatshirt. The lit end of his cigarette glows against the dark cover of night, and Mark has a sudden urge to capture this moment forever, framing it in his mind like he'd do behind the lens of a camera. If nothing else, committing the image to memory might allow him to figure out why he wants to kiss Damien so badly in his particular moment.

“What is it?” Mark prompts him.

“Nothing," he replies, shaken out of whatever has distracted him. He walks forward, and they fall into step beside each other once more. “You’re not getting tired yet, are you?” he then asks, as if Mark is the one who has stopped in his tracks for no discernible reason.

Despite the strides that Mark has made in his recovery, a few laps around the motel approaches the limit of what his body can handle. Some minor muscle soreness is much preferable to being stuck inside a tiny motel room for an entire day, however, and so he pushes through the ache in his legs.

“Nope, I’m good,” he says. “How about you, Rin?”

“Still in better shape than you are,” she quips, and Mark rolls his eyes.

By the time they have almost completed their current circuit around the building, a few raindrops have begun to fall in a light drizzle. At first Mark ignores the change in weather, happy to feel the rain against his skin as a reminder that he can at least _occasionally_ experience the outside world and everything it has to offer, but then the skies open up into a heavy downpour that is significantly less refreshing.

“Ah, shit,” Damien mutters. He grinds out the remainder of his cigarette under the heel of his worn-out black Vans and adjusts the hood of his sweatshirt to more fully cover his head. “Come on, we’ve got to get inside.”

Mark follows him, moving as fast as his tired legs can carry him. “Hell of a time for it to start pouring rain,” he calls out while lagging behind Damien’s brisk pace. “Couldn’t have checked the weather forecast first, could you?”

“Do I look like a damn weatherman?” Damien replies. He ducks under the awning that overhangs the row of rooms. “I control people’s minds, not the weather.”

Mark catches up to him as he unlocks the door to their room. “Yeah, something tells me that you’d be living a _very_ different life right now if you were a weather manipulator.”

The door swings open, and Mark hurries inside ahead of Damien. He immediately exchanges his soaked T-shirt for a dry one and pushes his wet hair out of his eyes as Varinia shakes herself dry. Damien, meanwhile, has taken off his sweatshirt and tossed it onto the bed. Mena leaps down to wrap herself in its fabric like a blanket, her small body shivering despite having only briefly left the sweatshirt’s warmth.

“Well, that was an adventure,” Mark says.

Damien does not say anything to him. He crosses the distance that separates the two of them, wearing the same look on his face that had made Mark want to kiss him earlier. They stand facing each other, and Mark tries to read something in the dull blue-gray of his eyes before Damien leans in and presses his mouth against his.

Mark’s noise of surprise becomes lost in the kiss that rapidly progresses into something far more passionate than the brief peck that they’d shared last night. The movements of Damien’s mouth are sloppy and unpracticed, as if it has been a while since he has last made out with someone—but Mark doesn’t have much room to criticize him on that front, considering how he himself hadn’t been kissing anyone during the five years he spent imprisoned in the Tier 5 basement and then mentally trapped in 1810. Eventually they settle into something resembling a mutual rhythm, and Mark’s entire world fades out except for this single moment of their kiss.

“What the hell was that for?” he asks after they have broken apart.

“Dr. B. said I’d never be able to form a meaningful connection with anyone.” Damien smirks in an expression that Mark would have once considered infuriating, but now it only makes him want to kiss him again. “ _God_ , I love it when she’s wrong.”

Beneath the happy haze that the kiss has enveloped him in, Mark feels a faint twinge of irritation at the slight against Joan. “Just because I said that I think you’re capable of basic human decency doesn’t mean we have a—”

His words are interrupted by another kiss. Damien tastes like smoke and tobacco, but Mark doesn’t even hate it as he allows the kiss to continue. He’s glad that Damien has ceded control to him this time, no longer overeager to the point of Mark having to work to fall into sync with him. He then realizes that this might be the first time that Damien, the man who can manipulate everyone around him to conform to his desires, has willingly let him be in control. There are a _lot_ of implications that Mark could read into this realization, but his brain is not in the mood for critical thinking right now.

“Okay, I’m gonna need to sit down,” he says after they have pulled apart. His hands have tangled themselves into Damien’s hair that grows messily past his ears, and the strands are surprisingly soft beneath his fingertips.

The smirk returns to Damien’s lips. “That good, huh?”

“No. I mean, yes, you’re actually not that bad of a kisser when you’re not immediately jumping in with way too much tongue. But this is more of a ‘my coma legs are screaming at me right now’ kind of situation.” 

He and Damien let go of each other, and he stumbles toward the bed to collapse onto it. He stares at the ceiling as his heart continues to pound against his chest in exhilaration. When he feels the added weight on the mattress of Damien sitting next to him, he slowly pulls himself up into a seated position, groaning at the exertion.

“Feeling better?” Damien asks.

Mark nods. For once he finds himself at a loss when it comes to the progression of intimacy with someone. He usually has no problem with leaving things undefined and taking a “clearly there’s something between us so let’s see where it goes” approach, but at the very least he likes to first make sure that everyone is on the same page. With Damien, the two of them could be reading entirely different chapters about what happens next, and yet any desire Mark has to initiate a conversation about either of their intentions is a distant priority right now.

Damien's hand rests against the duvet, close enough for Mark to easily take it in his own to entwine their fingers together. Instead, his attention is drawn to where Mena has crawled out from inside Damien's discarded sweatshirt to nuzzle against Varinia in a mirror expression of the passion that their humans have shared. After Varinia has gently licked Mena’s face in a gesture far more affectionate than any of the opinions that she has expressed about the other daemon, Mena approaches Mark as the pull of Damien’s desire increases.

He extends a hand toward her, not fully processing what he is doing until he feels her sleek fur beneath his fingers. Damien inhales a quiet breath at the profound intimacy of feeling Mark’s touch against his very soul. It has been a long time since he has laid a hand on another person’s daemon, an action that is usually a sign of ultimate trust and security between people—not always inherently sexual in nature, but something that he often shares with a partner as they lie together in bed after sex. The way that Damien looks at him with his eyes half-lidded and his lips parted makes Mark wonder if this is an entirely new experience for him.

As Mark continues to run his hand across Mena’s back, Damien hesitantly reaches out a hand to pet Varinia. She does not pull away from him, and the sensation of Damien’s touch against Varinia's fur soon overwhelms him in the best way possible. When he had been at the AM, sometimes the doctors and scientists had needed to touch Varinia out of necessity, but the contact was always uncomfortably clinical in its violation of the usual taboos about touching another person’s daemon. The stroke of Damien’s fingers feels far from wrong, however, and just like with the kiss last night he knows that his own desires have aligned with what Damien wants independently of the latter’s ability. He idly wonders if this is what Damien meant when he said that he’d found a meaningful connection: that he now has someone with whom he wants to share this deeply intimate moment.

“I really do care about you, Damien,” Mark admits. “I’m glad you were the one who saved me, even though you’re not exactly the most conventional knight in shining armor.”

“And that woman you keep talking about who was in the other time with you?” Damien asks. “You don’t care about her anymore, right?”

“She isn’t real,” Mark says, repeating what Damien has told him so many times even though the declaration makes Varinia tense under Damien’s hand. “ _You_ are.”

Damien gives a quiet chuckle. “That’s right. I am.”

He leans in to kiss Mark again, and Mark surrenders himself to the joy that rises inside him, never stopping to question how much he truly is in control.


	6. Chapter 6

Mark and Damien aren’t dating. Mark knows what dating looks like, and he’s pretty sure what he and Damien are doing doesn’t qualify when the two of them have been each other’s only company for almost three months and rarely venture beyond their bubble of highways and motels. They aren’t hooking up or friends with benefits either, never progressing much further beyond occasional heavy petting over their clothes in the heat of the moment. What the two of them _do_ have is something that defies any definition that Mark can think of: two people who make out sometimes, know what each other’s daemon feels like under their hands, and fall asleep next to each other even when they’re staying in a room with two beds. There is also the important detail of how Damien’s ability factors into their situation, and that is where Mark knows he should be especially careful.

But “knowing” and “doing” are two entirely different concepts, and Mark likes this new version of Damien too much to step back and look at the scenario objectively while in the moment. It’s only when Damien leaves him alone in the car or motel room that his brain stops taking a vacation long enough to make him question everything. As usual, this glimmer of doubt manifests in a judgmental glare from Varinia on one particular Friday afternoon while Damien is off getting food. 

“What’s that look for?” he asks her with a weary sigh.

“Are you sure you wanted that last kiss you had with Damien before he left?”

“Of course I did,” he replies, unable to hide how he has spent the last few minutes daydreaming about the now-familiar (but no less exhilarating) sensation of Damien’s lips against his own. “It was a pretty good kiss.”

Varinia’s gaze turns pitying from where she sits on the end of the bed. “That doesn’t mean anything. Sometimes I just think his thought process is that if he kisses you hard enough, some sort of switch will flip and your ability will start working again.”

“Well, if that’s the case, maybe it’ll happen if he and I fuck instead,” Mark jokes, which earns him a groan of exasperation. “He’s really been doubling down on the whole ‘kick-starting my ability’ thing lately, huh?”

“I guess it _is_ the only thing that stands in the way of you being completely back to normal after the coma,” Varinia acknowledges. “And it might make our lives easier too. Maybe both of you being able to use his ability will cancel it out, and then we’ll start actually having a say in things around here.”

“We _do_ have a say in things,” Mark says.

He doesn’t fully believe the words that leave his mouth, however, nor does he have confidence in Varinia’s claim that his life might get easier with his ability. As frustrating as it is to sense the faint edges of Damien’s ability without being able to latch onto it for his own use, not having to worry about accidentally using other people’s powers has been a refreshing change after the years that he spent surrounded by other atypicals at the AM. Maybe he _is_ better off without his ability after all, if only because it brings him one step closer to the thoroughly ordinary life that his parents expected for him before a random quirk in his genetics turned him into something that they, and most of the rest of the world, unrightfully see as dangerous.

“I’m just tired of feeling like part of me is broken,” he says. He rolls over and presses his face into the pillow. “Or like the AM were the ones who broke me by getting me stuck in that coma in the first place.”

Assigning blame to the AM does not make him feel any better, as much as he wishes that every person who kept him trapped there could understand just how deeply they have fucked him up to turn him into a shell of his former self. Varinia curls up on the bed with him in sympathy, and the warm weight of her body comforts him as the quiet contentment that he’d felt in Damien’s company drains out of him with his waning influence.

“Hey, Mark,” Varinia says eventually. “Look what Damien left.”

She nods toward the bedside table. Mark follows her gaze to see that Damien’s phone is still connected to its charger. His heart races at the fulfillment of the mistake that he has been waiting for Damien to make, which allows him to have full contact with the outside world for the first time in months—years, even, if his time at the AM is included.

“He’s already been gone for almost ten minutes,” he says. “Do you think he’s not coming back for it?”

“Either way, we need to be quick about it. Who knows when we’re going to get a chance like this again?”

Mark’s mind feels clearer than it has been in days as he scoots toward the other side of the bed and reaches for the phone with trembling hands. He turns on the screen and sees that Damien has no new notifications other than the message that the phone’s battery is now fully charged. He unplugs the phone from its charger and is met with the barrier of the lock screen.

“You remember the password?” Varinia asks.

Mark nods and enters the numbers “2288.” When he gets to the home screen of the phone, he is unsurprised to discover that Damien has not bothered to change the wallpaper to something more personalized than one of the defaults. The screen layout of the iPhone model that Damien uses has not changed too much compared to what Mark is accustomed to, but that does not stop him from feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of what to check first.

“What are you waiting for?” says Varinia. “Call Joanie.”

He casts a glance at the door, mentally taking stock of how much time he has until Damien’s return. “You can learn a lot about someone from their phone,” he replies, fully aware of the risk that he is taking. “Just give me a couple of minutes.”

Varinia huffs in impatience. “Okay, but don’t waste too much time.”

Mark first taps the phone icon to check Damien’s call history. Other than an occasional spam call, most of the missed or ignored calls that he has received in recent months have been from “Dr. B.” Mark’s heart races as he scrolls down the list and sees just how often Joan has tried to contact Damien, especially the further back he goes toward the beginning of July. There are also a few calls from “that agent green guy,” as Damien has named him in his contacts, interspersed between some of the earliest calls from Joan. Mark knows from some of their previous conversations that Damien has at least a passing familiarity with Green, but seeing the evidence that an agent of the AM has been attempting to contact Damien during their time on the run introduces another terrifying element into the equation.

Mark then moves on to investigate Damien’s texts, which show an even sparser history. The only recent conversation thread is from Joan, which contains a single message dated “7/2/16, 10:44 PM.” _Damien, I am beyond furious,_ it reads. _I trusted you to help return Mark safely to me and you betrayed that trust. I don’t know where you took him, but I swear I will hand you straight to the AM if I ever see you again. I told you that I’d do anything to get Mark back from them, and I meant it. You won’t be able to hide forever._

“Jesus,” Mark murmurs. The words certainly sound like Joan, but he has never seen such a strong degree of ruthlessness from her. Usually she deals more in the realm of passive-aggressiveness, but there is nothing passive about the threats that she has issued. “She must have been really pissed at him. She hardly _ever_ texts.”

“More importantly,” says Varinia, trying to keep him on task, “there’s the definite proof that Damien’s been lying to us about her. He said that he was working on his own to get us out of the AM and that Joanie never seemed interested in freeing us. But here it sounds like he was supposed to be helping her until he took matters into his own hands.”

Mark re-reads Joan’s text and her declaration that she is willing to do anything to get him back safely. The fog of doubt lifts from his mind, and now he must reevaluate everything that Damien has tried to convince him about Joan. His head spins with the enormity of the realization, as if he has missed a step walking down a staircase and then looked down to discover that there aren’t any stairs at all.

“He’s such a big fucking liar,” he mutters. “And we can’t even confront him about it without admitting that we went into his phone.”

“So stop snooping and _call Joanie_ ,” Varinia insists. “Before it’s too late.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t have even found out that he was lying if I hadn’t seen that text. I just…” He trails off, still trying to make sense of the unraveling reality in front of him. “I need to know what else he’s been hiding from us. Because once he comes back, it’s going to be a whole lot harder to get the truth.”

He taps back to the phone’s home screen and continues his investigation. Damien’s photo roll is empty, which hurts Mark’s photographer soul a little. Now that he thinks about it, he has never seen him take any pictures while they’ve been on the road, not even when they have passed by scenery and roadside oddities that Mark would have loved to capture behind a lens. 

“Who the hell is Robert Gorham?” he wonders upon moving on to Damien’s email inbox. It contains too many unread messages for Mark to know where to begin, but as he checks some of the more official-looking emails he discovers that they are all addressed to the same unfamiliar name.

“Either Damien has committed identity fraud on top of everything else,” Varinia says, “or ‘Damien’ isn’t his real name. Which wouldn’t surprise me very much. The last one, I mean.”

“Yeah, why use your real name when you can get everyone to call you by an edgy fake name instead?” Mark mutters.

Not wanting to untangle the full implications of this particular discovery, he next consults Damien’s calendar. Predictably, he has not updated his calendar since the beginning of July, but as Mark scrolls back to earlier months he sees an increasing number of entries. Most of them read _appointment w/ Dr. B_ , scattered throughout the weeks without any real pattern, but he finds a few other records of events as well: the cryptic _telepath girl & two teenagers outside Dr. B’s office _ on May second and the more straightforward _telepath girl spying on Dr. B’s meeting with agent from the AM_ on April fifteenth. Going back even further, he also finds a few notes that seem to be tracking Joan’s movements, such as when she comes in and out of her office and where she goes after work. The observations only last for a week or two before they stop, as if Damien had grown bored with his amateur detective act.

“Ugh, it’s like he was stalking her,” Mark says. “Do you think she knew? Why she put up with him for so long, I have no—”

He breaks off upon noticing something as he continues to scroll back through the months. Although Damien has consistently referred to Joan as “Dr. B” throughout most of his calendar, Mark now sees a couple of references to “Dr. Bright” mixed in as well. He stares at the screen in disbelief, not even stopping to consider that this person and Joan might not be one and the same. What had once been a wild theory on Varinia’s part now stares back at him as the probable truth, and the fragile glass case of lies that Damien has built around him shatters with the force of the revelation.

“I would say ‘I told you so,’” says Varinia, following along with his thoughts. “But I’m not sure how I feel about being right on this one.”

“All this time, every single thing he said was a lie.” Mark sets down Damien’s phone and rests his head in his hands, still trying to process everything that he has learned in the past few minutes. “About Joan’s intentions, about not knowing who Dr. Bright is, and… _Fuck_.” Yet another exposed lie hits him like a punch to the gut, sending him hurtling over the edge into the abyss. “This has to mean that Sam is real too, right? She really _was_ working with Joanie to save us, and we _didn’t_ imagine her. God, what if both of them have been looking for us this entire time? I need to call Joanie, I need to—”

“Breathe,” Varinia reminds him, just like Joan would do if she were here.

Mark inhales a deep breath and exhales it slowly in an attempt to gather himself before picking up Damien’s phone and goes into his list of contacts. Joan’s office, cell, and home numbers are all listed, and Mark doesn’t want to think about how Damien likely manipulated her home phone number out of her. He debates between calling her office and cell, having no idea what her work schedule looks like and knowing that she won’t answer a call if she is busy with a patient, and he ultimately settles on trying her cell first.

“Here goes nothing,” he says as he presses the call button. Each ring on the other end of the connection is unbearable as his heart pounds in anticipation. He wraps an arm around Varinia for support when she moves closer to him on the bed. “Come on, Joanie, pick up your goddamn phone,” he mutters in impatience.

The eventual sound of her voice fills him with a burst of relief until he realizes that he is hearing the pre-recorded message on her voicemail. “You’ve reached the voicemail of Dr. Joan Bright,” she says. “If this is to schedule an appointment, please press…”

He barely pays attention to the rest of the message. The final confirmation of Damien’s lies falls into place when he hears the truth straight from her lips, calling herself “Dr. Bright” instead of the “Dr. Bryant” that he expects. When the tone sounds for him to leave a message of his own, it takes him a moment to shake himself out of his shock so he can speak.

“Joan—Joanie, it’s me. It’s Mark,” he says. “I’m—Well, I don’t know where I am. But I’m okay. I’m with Damien.” He glances anxiously at the door, knowing that Damien could walk through it at any moment. “He’ll be back soon, so I don’t have much time, but I…” He hesitates, unsure of how to explain the roller coaster that he has experienced with Damien. “He’s been fine. I mean, he’s been… It’s difficult, his ability. And so I didn’t realize that you were Dr. Bright. I _should_ have realized, but everything was so screwed up and my head was all…” He exhales another deep breath to steady himself. “Look, are you with Sam? Is she okay? Damien says he doesn’t know anything about her, but I guess you guys were working together? I don’t know, Joanie, I’m confused and I’m scared. And I miss you, and—”

A car pulls up outside of the motel room. Varinia jumps down from the bed and rushes to the window to peer through the curtains.

“It’s him,” she warns. “Hurry up.”

“I’ve gotta go,” he says into the phone. “He’s back, but I’m going to come home soon, I promise—”

The door opens. Regretting that he has not had the chance to offer any final farewells or expressions of love, Mark ends the call. He looks up to see Damien coming into the room carrying a plastic bag filled with takeout containers. As a final measure of safety when he is unsure what will happen next, he starts a voice memo on the phone while Damien isn’t looking.

“Honey, I’m home,” Damien declares with a joking sense of domesticity.

After that, everything changes.

* * *

Mark sits in the driver’s seat of the car, gripping his hands tightly against the steering wheel while trying not to panic.

The events of the last fifteen minutes play in his head in a continuous loop: how he’d confronted Damien and tugged at the thread of his lies until the whole damn thing came unraveled, how his fury had boiled over into him shoving Damien hard enough for him to go limp as Varinia lunged at Mena and sank her teeth into the other daemon’s fur, and how he has finally been able to grab hold of Damien’s ability to use it in a way that feels far more invasive than he has expected. The most disconcerting thing, however, is witnessing Damien rendered completely docile to his will. Mark wonders if this is what he has looked like for the past three months, glassy-eyed with a blank stare whenever he receives a command, and he decides that he’d rather not know the answer to that question.

He pulls himself together enough to start the car and back out of Damien’s crooked parking job in the motel parking lot, which is step one toward getting out of this mess. He had not been paying enough attention during the drive yesterday to have any concept of where he is beyond “a small town somewhere in Texas,” and so he uses Damien’s phone for navigation to get back on the highway. He has the phone’s volume turned up to maximum so that he does not miss any calls, but the only thing he hears from the speaker are the turn-by-turn instructions from the navigation app.

They have been on the highway for less than an hour when Mark realizes that he has not used the bathroom since late that morning, and he’s not sure whether he can wait until the next rest stop. He squints at the sign in the distance that lists the attractions at the upcoming exit, struggling to see if there is a suitable place for him to stop.

“Hey, Damien, I need you to be my eyes for a sec,” he says.

“What?” Damien replies blankly.

“I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but my eyesight is kind of shit without glasses or contacts. It hasn’t been a huge problem since I got out of the AM other than the TV being a little blurry, but now that I’m the one driving I need you to help me read some of the highway signs. Like, right this second, ideally.”

Mark expects Damien to ask an array of follow-up questions as part of his seemingly insatiable curiosity, but all he gets is his obedient confirmation that there is a McDonald’s among the food and lodging at the next exit. Mark hates how malleable and empty Damien’s mind feels as he follows his orders, a blank slate ready to accept any passing thought that Mark has. He doesn’t know how Damien can revel in this degree of control without feeling like the grossest person on the planet, but he supposes that’s why he is a better man than Damien is.

“Do you need to come in and use the bathroom too?” Mark asks after they have pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot.

“No, I’m good,” Damien replies, his voice inflectionless as he stares out the window while holding Mena close in his arms.

“Okay. Just, uh, stay put then.”

The command stretches out from Mark’s mind to Damien’s. In a weird sense of absolute certainty, the possibility of Damien disobeying him does not even cross his mind. He should feel bad for leaving him alone in the car like this when he himself has been subjected to the same treatment for months, but after everything that has happened today Mark can only muster up the barest amount of sympathy. He instead offers no further words to Damien as he gets out of the car and opens one of the side doors to let Varinia out from where she has been riding in the back seat.

Once he is inside the restaurant and has entered the men’s room, he bypasses the urinals and shuts himself inside a stall. He doesn’t realize how shallow his breathing has become until he hears Varinia’s whispered reminder of “Pee first, panic later.” Because that's just what he needs: to have a panic attack in a McDonald’s bathroom because the whole world has crumbled around him to reveal that his not-boyfriend and not-even-friend has spent the past three months pulling him into a web of lies and manipulation.

“This is bad, isn’t it?” Varinia says as he tries to get his heart rate to slow down.

“Yeah, no shit,” he replies. He rakes a hand through his hair and takes a few deep breaths. A public restroom is not the best place for him to speak freely with his daemon, especially about atypical matters, but he might as well take advantage of the bathroom being empty for now. “I think we really broke him, Rin. And don’t say that he deserved it,” he adds before she can say anything in response.

“I mean, are you sure?” she says. When the look on Mark’s face tells her that this is no time for teasing, she continues with, “Right, sorry. What are we gonna do?”

“I have no idea.” He takes another steadying breath. “God, I wish Joanie was here.”

“She’ll call back,” Varinia assures him. “After all that time she spent trying to get a hold of Damien during the summer, I don’t think she would ignore a voicemail from his number.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. She’s probably just busy and hasn’t seen the message yet.”

Mark pats his pockets to feel for Damien’s phone and realizes that he has left it in the car, not yet having reacquired the habit of taking a cell phone with him everywhere. His heart sinks at the mistake that adds even more to his list of problems when he is already facing so many uncertain elements.

“Shit,” he mutters. “I don’t have his phone. What if she’s calling right now? I don’t think Damien would answer, since he wasn’t too happy that I called her in the first place. And I don’t—”

He falls silent when the exterior door into the bathroom opens, followed by the sound of footsteps across the tile floor. Not wanting to waste any more time, he takes a final moment to pull himself together before leaving the stall to wash his hands. He walks out of the bathroom and briefly considers going up to the counter to get a drink or a small order of fries as a courtesy, but then he remembers that he can’t pay for anything. Damien’s ability renders money unnecessary, but at this distance Mark’s hold on Damien’s ability is shaky enough to make him hesitant about his capability to successfully impose his will upon an unsuspecting cashier, especially when he is not quite as nondescript as Damien is.

“Did Joan call when I was gone?” Mark asks once he has returned to the car.

“No,” Damien replies.

Mark sighs, simultaneously relieved that he has not missed her call and worried about the continued lack of contact from her. He reaches for Damien’s phone where he has left it on the center console and discovers that it is no longer there. Frowning, he searches the surrounding area in case it has slipped down to the floor or between the seats before giving up and taking a more direct approach.

“Where’s your phone?” he demands. When he does not receive an immediate response, he reaches out to Damien’s mind with more force, plowing past the weak pushback that he receives. “Seriously, Damien, where is it?”

“I smashed it,” he says, unapologetic in a way that proves that he can still be infuriating even when he has been reduced to unsettling subservience.

“You _what_?”

Damien takes his phone out of his pocket before Mark vocalizes the order for him to do so. The jagged lines of cracks have made the screen completely unusable, and when Mark tries to turn the phone on, the lack of response indicates that whatever force Damien has inflicted upon the device has caused severe internal damage as well.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he demands. “That was my one way of hearing back from Joanie! God, how do you _still_ manage to be a selfish asshole even when you’re like this?” He gestures up and down at Damien’s subdued state.

“I’m sorry,” Damien says.

“No, you’re not. You’re only saying that because _I_ want you to be sorry.”

Mark huffs out a frustrated breath and shoves the broken phone back at Damien, hating how even when he can force honesty and apologies out of him, the emotions behind the responses will never be genuine. The more important issue at hand, however, is figuring out the quickest and safest way to see Joan now that he no longer has a direct line of communication with her. Continuing to drive seems to be his best option. Even with Damien’s ability at his disposal, he does not want to deal with the risks of purchasing plane tickets and navigating airport security without any money or proper identification. With Damien in his current state, he’d prefer to have them stay out of sight as much as possible.

“We’ll just have to go talk to her in person, then,” he tells Damien. “However long it’ll take to get there.”

“She won’t want to see me,” says Damien. “Your sister. Not after what I did.”

“Well, you should have thought about that before you hijacked her rescue plan and kidnapped me,” Mark snaps back.

He remembers the text from Joan that has revealed her intentions to turn Damien over to the AM if she ever sees him again. Despite everything that has happened during the past couple of hours, Mark still does not relish the idea of Damien ending up in the AM’s hands, especially when the potentially dangerous nature of his ability would surely earn him a place in one of the higher tiers. It’s all the more reason for him to hurry back to Joan as fast as he can so that he can more fully piece together everything about her history with the AM and her plan to rescue him.

He turns the car key in the ignition and then realizes that he has no idea where he is going, having already forgotten the number of the highway that he’d previously been driving on. “You probably weren’t thinking about how we were using your phone for navigation before you smashed it, huh?” he says with a fresh wave of irritation at Damien’s small streak of rebellion.

“There’s an old GPS in the glovebox,” Damien offers in accordance with Mark's demand for cooperation. “I didn’t think to smash that too.”

“Jesus,” Mark mutters, realizing how careful he will have to be the next time he leaves Damien alone. He wonders if Damien ever had these same concerns whenever he had him wait in the car or motel room, or whether he was eternally confident that Mark would remain bound to his will. “Okay, give it to me so I can figure out where we’re going.”

He turns off the car’s engine and takes the GPS device after Damien has retrieved it for him. His spirits sink even lower when he sets a vague destination and discovers that it will take nearly thirty hours of non-stop driving to reach Massachusetts. He might not be the best example of good decision-making most of the time, but even _he_ knows that driving for over a day with no breaks while in his current state of emotional turmoil is not the best course of action.

“Well, it looks like you’re lucky enough to have a few more days to figure out how you’re going to explain yourself to Joanie,” he says. “I’d think about it long and hard if I were you.”

“Okay,” is all Damien says in placid compliance, left with no choice but to take Mark’s suggestion to heart.

“A few days” turns out to be an optimistic estimate for the remaining time of the road trip that never seems to end. Between the stops for food, gas, and something that is supposed to resemble a good night’s sleep, after four days they are only roughly halfway to their destination. Fortunately, Mark has been able to contact Joan again via an old payphone, and not only does he finally have a chance to talk to her, he also gets a brief conversation with Sam as the final proof that she is more than a hallucination. The memory of the phone call and the promise of seeing both of them again sustains him through every mile as he drags Damien’s sorry ass across the country.

Midway through their fourth day on the road, he and Damien are sitting at a booth inside a roadside diner after having stopped for gas next door. Bringing Damien inside a restaurant has not been Mark’s first choice, but he does not want to worry about making another stop for food, especially when they have spent most of the morning driving through a whole lot of nowhere. The diner probably sees all kinds of clientele, anyway, and with any luck everyone inside will assume that Damien’s sluggish, passive behavior is due to him being stoned out of his mind.

“Eat your food, man,” Mark says, urging Damien like he is a stubborn small child.

Damien picks up a French fry and brings it languidly to his mouth. He’d been useless in deciding what to eat even with a menu in front of him, and so Mark has ordered BLTs and fries for both of them. There’s something distinctly pathetic about the way that Damien picks at his meal without any hint of emotion, which almost pulls Mark into the trap of feeling sorry for him before he remembers why he shouldn’t pity him.

“Ugh, can you just say _something_?” Mark says in exasperation. “This is so depressing.”

“What do you even want me to say?” Damien grumbles through a mouthful of his sandwich. After he has swallowed, he continues with, “I put up with all the times that you didn’t want to talk. You should do the same for me.”

“No, because I don’t have to do what you want anymore. That’s sort of the point of this.” Mark drinks the dregs of coffee that remain in his cup. “But hey, it’s nice to know that you’ve still got _some_ entitlement left in you.”

“If you hate being stuck with me so much, why didn’t you leave me on the side of the road after what happened the other day?” Damien asks.

Mark remembers Damien’s plea of “Please don’t leave me” after everything went wrong with his ability. The look on his face had shown the desperation of someone who has lost everything in a matter of seconds, and as awful as Damien’s ability is he understands the sense of emptiness that comes with not being able to use or even feel the power that is so deeply part of you.

“Because I’m the one who made you this way even if I didn’t mean to, and it would definitely be a dick move for me to abandon you when you’re brain’s caved in on itself or whatever the hell happened?” he replies. “It’s basic human decency.”

Damien scoffs and eats another fry. His sullen irritation, as annoying as it is, shows that at least _some_ emotion can break through the blank-faced mask that he has been wearing for the past few days. Mark isn’t even actively pushing his ability right now, which means that this behavior must be all Damien.

Their waitress soon approaches the table. “You boys need anything else?” she asks. She is the perfect model of someone who Mark would expect to be working at a place like this: middle-aged with bright red lipstick and flyaway curls of hair that bear an uncanny resemblance to the fur of her poodle daemon.

“Can I get some more coffee?” says Mark.

“Sure thing, sweetheart.”

Neither Mark nor Damien say anything else until the waitress has refilled Mark’s mug of coffee. After she has walked away, Mark looks up from the sip of coffee that he has taken to see Damien glowering at him from across the table, his arms crossed as he ignores the half-eaten meal in front of him.

“Are you actually mad at me or do you just enjoy acting like a child?” Mark asks, wearily pressing through the stony silence.

Damien’s mind pushes against his desire to hear an honest response, but as long as they are sitting only a few feet away from each other like this, he is no match for Mark’s control over him. “At least I know how you really feel about me now,” he grumbles in what is not quite an answer to the question but is nonetheless illuminating.

“Oh, boy. _This_ ought to be good,” says Mark. He disregards Varinia’s warning nudge against him in a reminder that they shouldn’t continue a conversation like this in public.

“Well, we haven’t kissed once since you stole my ability from me.” As Damien speaks, Mena pokes out her head from his sweatshirt only to retreat into hiding just as quickly. “So clearly that’s not something you want anymore.”

“Sorry that I’ve been too busy trying to get us home to stop and make out with you,” Mark retorts. “It’s not exactly high on my list of priorities right now.”

“If you really cared, you would make the time.”

“Oh my fucking God.” Mark’s hand tightens around the handle of his mug, and he consciously relaxes his grip before he snaps and throws an almost-full cup of hot coffee in Damien’s face. “I can’t believe that even without your ability, you _still_ think you can manipulate me.”

“So manipulate me back,” says Damien. “ _You’re_ the one who can use my ability right now, after all.”

“No, because I’m not like you. I _don’t_ see control as the answer to everything.” Mark takes another drink from his mug and eats the last few fries on his plate. “You know,” he continues after he has swallowed, “it figures that someone like you ended up with this ability.”

Damien’s eyes narrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Because you already think that the world owes you something just for existing. Not everyone gets to feel that way.”

“I’m atypical, aren’t I?” Damien replies. “You of all people should know that the world isn’t always kind to people like us. If the world didn’t want to owe me anything, then maybe it shouldn’t have screwed me over in the first place.”

“Shh, not so loud.” Mark casts an anxious glance at the neighboring booths to make sure that no one is listening in, even though anyone eavesdropping on their conversation would have realized that something strange is going on long before the word “atypical” came up. “And this isn’t about being atypical. This is about you being basically the poster child for entitled white dudes. I would say ‘entitled _straight_ white dudes,’ but I’m pretty sure you don’t qualify as straight after everything that happened between us.”

Damien merely scowls in response. Mark can’t tell whether he is irritated at having been called out or if he has somehow taken offense at his assessment of his sexuality. Strangely enough, Mark has not thought too much about Damien's orientation before now. When his biggest worry is whether all of his feelings are his own, the possibility of falling for a straight man has been much lower on his list of concerns.

“Why didn’t you say anything to me earlier, by the way?” he asks.

“About what?”

“About being into guys. After all, I was upfront from the start about being bi. It never occurred to you to take that as a sign that you could say something like ‘Hey, cool, I like dudes too’?” He doesn’t even remember how Damien had reacted to his usual casual means of coming out, only that he seemed okay enough with it for Mark to feel confident that he hadn’t been rescued by a bigot.

“It wasn’t important,” says Damien. “I’ve never seen the point of defining myself or whatever.”

“I’m not saying you have to. I mean, I know that _I_ like to let people know, because it’s part of who I am and I’m not ashamed to show it. But I also get that labels and coming out aren’t for everyone.”

“I just figured that kissing you was all you needed to figure it out.”

“Yep, that’ll definitely do the job.” Mark takes another drink and, deciding that he has pushed the topic as far as it will go, changes the subject. “Come on,” he says. “Eat the rest of your food so we can get back on the road.”

Damien obeys with only the slightest push of Mark’s will. Rather than staring at him as he finishes his meal, Mark turns his attention to people-watching. The diner is not too busy despite the midday hour, and so the only other customers are a couple of truckers sitting at the counter and a small group at one of the other booths. He notices that a badger daemon belonging to one of the truckers is looking at him, and the daemon’s interest sets him on edge. As much as Mark tries to convince himself it’s probably nothing, he cannot quash the paranoid thought that the AM has agents masquerading as truck drivers who have been out here on the highway looking for him the entire time. By the time he has mentally drawn up a course of action to take if the AM _has_ indeed tracked him to this diner, the badger has looked away without any muttered words of discovery or warning to her human. Not _every_ pair of curious eyes on him has to be because of his status as a fugitive from the AM, he reminds himself, although he still lays a hand on Varinia’s back to calm both of their worries.

The waitress then returns to their table with the check, which shakes Mark out of his anxious headspace. “Oh, we already paid,” he tells her, reaching out to her ready-and-waiting mind to mold her thoughts into the result that he wants. He speaks with the cool confidence that tends to make Damien’s ability work best, as if he has no doubts that she will fall in line with his desire to leave this place without attracting any attention.

“That’s right, I think you did,” the waitress replies, her eyes and smile vacant with the hold that Mark has over her. “You boys have a nice day, now.”

“Yeah, you too,” says Mark, even though it doesn’t feel right to offer politeness after manipulating someone.

As soon as she has walked away, Mark scooches out of the booth. “Come on, we’re leaving,” he says to Damien to urge him out of his seat.

They go outside and get in the car. “Ugh, does doing that to people ever stop feeling gross?” Mark mutters as he buckles his seatbelt and puts the key in the ignition.

He intends the question to be rhetorical, but to his surprise he gets a response from Damien even though he is not pushing for a reaction. “Yeah, once you realize that sometimes you don’t have a choice,” he says.

Mark opens his mouth and then closes it again when he realizes that he does not have a good rebuttal. He has plenty of reasons to take the moral high road when it comes to Damien’s ability, but with his current priorities he often does not have that luxury. _Do what you need to do to come home_ , Joan had said to him on the other end of the payphone three days ago, and he’s not sure how he feels about her encouragement being so similar to Damien’s justifications.

“I’m still not like you, though,” Mark replies.

“We’re both doing whatever it takes to survive. That makes us pretty damn alike from where I’m sitting.”

Mark suppresses an irritated groan with the idle thought that he wants Damien to shut up. He realizes too late that his desires have stretched out to Damien’s mind, subduing him into silence like the fulfillment of a shitty genie wish. Mark releases his hold over him, but he has nothing more to say as he slumps down in the passenger seat while Mena hides out of sight in the front pocket of his hoodie.

“Just a few more days to go,” Mark murmurs to himself, but the miles stretch ahead of him longer than ever in his never-ending journey.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Portions of this chapter have been adapted from Episode 35/313.

An office building isn’t the most picturesque endpoint for a road trip, but after three months of being on the road, Mark feels like he has reached an oasis in the middle of a desert when he arrives at Joan’s workplace.

He’s not sure why the weight of anxiety presses on his chest as he enters the building. Seeing Joan in more than a brief glimpse for the first time in over five years shouldn’t make him nervous, but as much as he wants to walk into her office and immediately slide back into the relationship they had before everything went wrong, he knows he cannot expect them to carry on as if time and circumstances have not come between them. Even though he now knows that Damien has lied to him about Joan and her intentions, part of him still fears that recent years have changed her so much that the sister he loves will now be a stranger to him.

Damien, meanwhile, has been even more useless than usual since they rolled into the Boston area. Because it was difficult enough for Mark to pull the address of this building from him, he consults the floor directory to locate Joan’s office. _Dr. Joan Bright, Therapy for the Strange and Unusual_ , the sign reads. Mark almost laughs at how on-the-nose her branding is—just one step away from outright using the word “atypical.” He wonders how many completely normal people have come to see her under the impression that they fit the bill of “strange and unusual,” only to be turned away because they lack superhuman abilities.

“Third floor,” Mark reads. “Okay, let’s go.”

“I don’t want to see her,” Damien replies. He tries to push against the command, but Mark can barely feel his mental rebellion against the strength of his own will.

“Well, you’re gonna,” he says after he has pressed the button to summon the nearby elevator. “Because _I_ need to see her, and I’ve seen what happens when I leave you alone for too long. I don’t want to take any chances after everything I’ve gone through to get here.”

The elevator doors open with a ding, and Mark wonders if he will have to grab hold of Damien’s arm and physically drag him into the elevator. Damien soon moves to follow him, however, although he and Mena wear identical expressions of resentfulness as the doors close and the elevator begins its ascent.

“Almost there,” Varinia murmurs to him.

“What are we even going to say to her?” Mark replies in equally soft tones, crouching down so that he is level with her. He runs his hand through her fur until he holds her face between his hands, and the gentle gaze of her dark eyes brings a small amount of comfort to his restless emotions.

“You’ll think of something,” she says. “You always do. And you heard her on the phone when we talked to her. I’m sure she’ll still love us no matter what.”

“Yeah. Let’s hope so.”

Mark straightens up when the elevator doors open upon reaching the third floor. As he approaches the door to Joan’s office, he hears a familiar voice coming from beyond the ajar door that leads to the waiting room—belonging not to Joan, but rather to Sam. Her presence makes his heart beat even faster at the prospect of finally speaking to his rescuer face-to-face, with both of them finally existing in the same place and time as more than ghostly echoes.

“I know, I know,” Sam is saying. The unmistakable anger in her voice, muffled through the door and walls, catches Mark off-guard in a revelation of a side of her that he has never seen before. “I’m just so… I’ve never overheard anyone talk about me before, and to sit there and listen to him go on and on about how I was probably just a figment of Mark’s imagination, how I wasn’t _real_ , it was—”

Mark opens the door the rest of the way, unable to resist the opportunity to make a dramatic entrance. “I know you’re real,” he says.

And there she is, standing right in front of him more solidly than he has ever seen her. Her mouth forms a round “O” of surprise as she stares at him in disbelief, and she pushes back a few strands of her hair in a nervous motion before laying a hand on Peregrine’s back to calm the tension in his majestic form. A rustle of wings and the sight of another familiar daemon alerts him to Joan’s presence as well as Phoebus flies toward him with concern in his sharp yellow eyes. Joan herself looks more relieved than anything else, and when their eyes meet every complicated emotion that Mark has about seeing her again rises within him at the same time.

“Mark?” Sam gasps. “Oh my God—”

“Mark. You’re here,” says Joan.

Her words are more careful and guarded than Mark expects, even though he knows that she must be experiencing the same emotional roller coaster as he is. She takes a couple steps closer to him, hesitating as if she is unsure whether she should hug him right here and now. For the first time since entering the waiting room, Mark notices a third person alongside Joan and Sam as well: an unfamiliar young woman with a flying fox daemon, whose aesthetic Mark immediately pinpoints as “eccentric art student.” Her eyes dart between everyone in the room as if she is listening to something in the silence, and her gaze settles on Damien with a frown of uneasiness.

“I know I’m late,” Mark says, trying to stave off Joan’s inevitable complaint that he didn’t make it home in time for her birthday like he promised her on the phone the other day. “I said it’d be a week, and it’s been eight days. Trust me, it feels a lot longer than that.”

“Hi, Dr. B.,” Damien offers from where he has entered the room behind Mark.

Joan’s relief immediately shifts to fury in an expression that Mark _knows_ is not to be messed with. “Damien,” she says, all of the warmth draining from her voice.

Before she can say anything else, Sam storms up to Damien. She stares at him for a fraction of a moment, her jaw set in anger and determination, and then she draws back a fist and punches him square in the face. Damien cries out in pain and stumbles backwards at the force of the impact that Mark is fairly certain that nobody in the room has expected Sam to be capable of, judging by the uproar of shock that ensues.

“Sam!” Mark exclaims. “Whoa, hey—”

She takes a step back, shaking out her hand. “Ow, God, that hurts,” she says, her eyes wide with the realization of what she has done.

“Yeah, no kidding that hurts,” Damien retorts. Streaks of blood coat his fingers as he tries to stem the bleeding from his nose. “Jesus fucking Christ—”

Peregrine moves in front of Sam and snarls, his back arched in an aggressive posture to protect his human from any retaliation that Damien might offer. Phoebus swoops in front of him, spreading his wings warningly in an attempt to de-escalate the situation. Peregrine obediently backs down, although his eyes remain icy with an intensity that is a sharp departure from his usual shy demeanor.

A faint buzzing fills Mark’s ears, drawing energy from the commotion. It spreads to his head, pounding like a bad headache that overwhelms every part of his consciousness until he can barely hear himself think. Everything is too much for him to handle right now, and as much as he wants to curl up in the corner and scream, he needs to take control of the situation before things go even more south.

“Hey, whoa!” he bursts out, unable to hold in the stress of the mental overload. “Everyone just _calm down_!”

He does not realize that he has tapped into Damien’s ability until the room instantly falls silent, humans and daemons all staring at him as they stand obediently under his control. He relinquishes his hold immediately, not relishing the feeling of having so many people bound to his will. Mena is the first one to move, ducking down to hide inside Damien's sweatshirt, but the first verbal response comes from the unfamiliar girl.

“Oh, boy.” She regards Mark with a mixture of apprehension and confusion. “You can do the thing, can’t you?”

He does not have to guess whether “the thing” refers to Damien’s ability. “Yeah, I—” He breaks off as the buzzing grows more focused, sharpening into distinct words and ideas that take shape in his mind. “Wait, you can—?” The noise rises to a crescendo of several people talking to him at once, even though no one else is speaking aloud. “Oh God, it just got _really_ loud in here.”

“Oh, jeez. Yeah, sorry. I—”

She falls silent, and now Mark can clearly pick out her voice in his head: _Wow, so I guess this is what Dr. Bright meant by sharing abilities. That’s actually really cool. Oh my God, Sam is really freaking out about the whole “punching Damien” thing. Or maybe it’s just because Mark’s here and she doesn’t know what to do about—Wait, can you hear me?_

It takes Mark a moment to realize that the last thought is directed at him. He feels like a door has opened in his brain to connect his mind with the girl’s, and so he tests the link with a question of _What do you mean?_

 _I was thinking about how I could hear Sam panicking about punching Damien and how she doesn’t know what to do now that you’re here,_ he hears in response. _And then I heard you think that you don’t want her to be freaking out because of you. It was like you were thinking it in direct response to my own thoughts. Ooh, this is weird. I’ve never been on this side of things before._

Mark has previously experienced something like this while working with telepaths at the AM, but he pushes away those memories as soon as they surface, not wanting to expose them to a stranger who has direct access to his mind. _Yeah, “weird” is one way of putting it_ , he thinks instead, hoping to steer her away from that part of his brain.

“Are you two communicating telepathically?” asks Joan, pulling Mark out of the mental connection with a confused “Huh?”

“What?” The girl blinks, also distracted by Joan’s interruption. “Um, yeah. Yes, it seems that way.”

Sam turns considerably paler. “Oh, God. You mean you can—?”

She doesn’t finish her sentence out loud, but Mark gets the gist of how it would have ended from the anxious whirlwind that has formed in her mind. Her shock at what she has done to Damien is at the forefront of that storm, along with her clear panic about how everything she feels for Mark is on display for him without her having to utter a word.

“Sam, are you okay?” he asks her. Then, torn between anger at her act of violence and satisfaction that at least _someone_ has the balls to punch Damien in his stupid face, he adds, “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry, I just—I saw him and I sort of… reacted?” Her face scrunches up with an apologetic frown. “But you’re here. Oh my God, you’re really here. Do you—? Have—? Can I—?”

As she stammers out her false starts, the edges of her body begin to shimmer. Mark recognizes the phenomenon from whenever her visits to him in 1810 would come to a close, but now he can feel it as well in a vibration under his skin. It is the first time he has properly sensed her ability, although he cannot grasp onto it tightly enough to use it—which is a relief, considering how he is far from eager to time travel in any capacity after the failed experiment with Camille at the AM.

“Sam?” he says, hoping that his voice will keep her anchored in place.

She looks down at her flickering hands. “Oh, you’ve got to be _kidding_ me," she says, more exasperated than terrified. She raises her hands in an imploring gesture. "Just stay here, if you can. I’ll be ba—”

She vanishes mid-sentence with a whoosh that lurches faintly inside Mark. He immediately braces himself to disappear with her, but the temporal shift does not come. Instead he is left staring at the empty space where she and Peregrine once stood, and Varinia lowers her head in her disappointment at how their reunion has been abruptly cut short.

“Fucking perfect,” he mutters.

“Don’t worry, she’ll be back,” the unfamiliar girl assures him.

“Oh, I know she will,” he replies. “I just would have liked to hug her first, at least once.”

“The waiting makes getting there that much better?” she suggests with a sense of optimism that he has not felt for a long time.

“Yeah, I think we’ve had enough waiting,” he says. He regards her and her daemon’s wide, hopeful eyes and fully realizes that the past few minutes have been shared with a total stranger. “And—I’m sorry, who are you?”

He then learns that this is Chloe, Sam's telepath friend whom she'd mentioned a few times during their conversations in 1810. They don't have much time to swap stories before Joan springs into action about Damien and his still-bleeding nose. Damien's sulky silence in the wake of getting punched in the face sets Mark on edge, and he wonders if the overall lack of a reaction is his own fault because his constant desire for Damien to be cooperative has extended to this situation as well. He hears how worried Joan is when Chloe volunteers to keep an eye on Damien while she and Mark talk privately, but neither of them have come this far to let Damien stand in the way of their reunion.

At first it feels like nothing has changed when they go into Joan’s office, especially when she crushes him with a hug and teases him about the “unacceptable” state of his hair. As they talk, however, Mark cannot ignore the emotional distance that continues to separate them, as if they are standing on opposite banks of a river but have not yet found a way to bridge the gap. All of the secrets that Joan kept from him about working for the AM are now thrown into the harsh light of day as she explains why she has kept him in the dark for so long, and he raises his eyebrows at her confirmation that even after being fired from her previous position at the AM she continues to work for them as an outside consultant. Her determination to prevent the AM from getting their hands on him again is a relief, at least, and it gives him hope that despite her past and present history with the organization, her loyalty truly lies with him.

But he cannot fault her too much for her secrets when he is concealing something major from her for one of the first times in his life. His stomach twists uncomfortably when he tells her that nothing happened between him and Damien, burying the couple of weeks of their intimacy beneath the half-lie that Damien had primarily been interested in his ability. Joan’s thoughts tell him that she fully believes him, which does not do much to comfort him. For a terrible moment he wonders if he is passively using Damien’s ability to _make_ her believe him, but the fear fades when he remembers how earlier in their conversation she’d immediately noticed when he unintentionally exerted control over her. Whatever trust she has in his honesty must be entirely her own.

“Sounds like Sam is back,” Mark eventually says when he hears a faint whoosh from the waiting room, which is followed by Chloe’s muffled inquiry of “Sam! Are you all right?”

“Right,” says Joan. “We should probably check on Damien anyway.”

She rises from where she has been sitting next to Mark on the couch and opens the door to the waiting room. Mark barely has time to process the subdued sight of Damien on the couch before his gaze immediately finds Sam. A faint blush spreads across her cheeks at the eye contact, and Mark receives a barrage of her thoughts: _I can’t believe he’s here, what do I do now, will it be weird if I hug him, I don’t know how to do any of this_. Between Joan and Chloe’s thoughts about whether they should give the two of them some privacy and Joan’s knowing smile when they’d discussed his incorporeal and temporally complex courtship with Sam, he suspects that Sam has not kept whatever feelings she has for him to herself. As if he needs another reason to feel terrible about how complicated everything has become, he thinks bitterly, and he hopes that Chloe has not picked up this particular thought from him.

He and Sam excuse themselves into Joan’s office. After he has closed the door behind them, Mark takes in the full sight of the woman in front of him: his savior, his sole shred of sanity in the face of solitude, and his once-upon-a-time crush whose happily-ever-after ending with him vanished the moment Damien entered his life. She stands near the couch, shifting her weight nervously between her feet as her thoughts run in frantic circles around her head. Peregrine rubs against her legs as he hides behind her in a motion that seems oddly timid for such an impressive creature. When Mark had first met Sam in the past, he’d been surprised that her daemon takes the form of a snow leopard when she herself is a bundle of anxiety and uncertainty. Upon getting to know her better, he has since learned that Peregrine’s shape reflects her inner strength that has carried her through unspeakable tragedy.

“I bet you didn’t think this is how we’d see each other in the present for the first time, huh?” Mark says, taking the first leap into their conversation.

“No, it definitely isn’t,” Sam replies. “Sorry for disappearing back there. I was so mad at Damien, and seeing you was… Well, it was a lot. I guess my ability couldn’t handle it.”

As Mark listens to what she says aloud, he also hears her thoughts echoing behind them like the backing vocals of a song. Most of them are the repeated fear that she doesn’t know what she’s doing, along with the deep desire of how badly she wants to kiss him. Three months ago, he would have unhesitatingly given her the perfect kiss that she is imagining, but now he cannot entertain the thought of doing so without Damien popping into his head.

“Don’t worry about it,” he assures her, pushing away the memory of Damien’s lips against his own. “I’m just relieved that I didn’t get swept away with you.”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that,” she says. “Maybe it’s because you’re not used to my ability yet? I know you’ve said that it can sometimes take you a couple of tries to take hold of a power if it’s something you’ve never used before, and—”

She breaks off when Mark pulls her into the embrace that he has wanted to give her for months, ever since she first hinted at being able to bring him back to the present. She tenses in uncertainty before settling into the hug, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing tightly as if she never wants to let go. Her thoughts become less frantic, and he obtains a clear sense of how safe she feels. He is glad that at least _someone_ feels safe here, because as happy as he is to see her and Joan, he cannot shake the feeling that something terrible is lurking in the shadows ready to ruin his homecoming.

“Right, um, sorry for rambling,” Sam says after she has let go of him. “It happens a lot when I get nervous, and it doesn’t help that you can hear my thoughts right now which is _definitely_ super embarrassing, and—”

“Seriously, there’s no need to apologize,” Mark insists. “And it’s been a while since I’ve used telepathy, so I’m not entirely sure I remember how to turn down the volume on people’s thoughts. But I’ll try my best not to listen.”

“Okay. Um, thanks.”

Peregrine returns to Sam’s side from where he has been speaking quietly with Varinia. He looks up at Mark with piercing blue eyes as Sam pets his head in an absent motion. She takes a deep breath as if she is bracing herself for something, and her nervous mental pacing continues to seep into Mark’s mind.

“I’m so sorry for not being honest with you all those times back in 1810,” she says. “I should have told you right from the start that I knew Joan and that we were working together to get you out. I was so caught up in being your knight in shining armor, and if I hadn’t been so selfish about it, then maybe everything wouldn’t have gone so wrong. You would’ve known I was real, and—”

“It’s okay,” Mark replies. “You owned up to your mistake, and you still got me out in the end. Trust me, you’re the last person I’m mad at about this whole situation.”

“It _isn’t_ okay, though.” Sam looks at him with such earnestness in her eyes, and even if he didn’t have the echo of her thoughts in the back of his mind he can tell how genuinely sorry she is. “I don’t want to be that person. Someone who lies to people for selfish reasons. You deserve so much better than that. Especially because—”

She breaks off, and all of her thoughts jumble together into an anxious mess. “Because what?” he prompts her, even though he has a good guess about where this conversation is going.

She takes another deep breath. “Because I care about you,” she says. “And yeah, I know that’s absolutely ridiculous. We met under the weirdest circumstances, and so many other messed-up things have happened since then. And I don’t know how you feel, or if I’ve just misinterpreted everything, but I… Well, I felt like there was something between us whenever I visited you in the past. Or maybe there _could_ be something. But all I know is that I—I really like you. More than I’ve liked anyone in my entire life.”

Her face grows increasingly scarlet with each word that comes out of her mouth. In a simpler world, Mark would immediately assure her that he feels the same way, but right now he cannot allow himself to share in her affection when he is unable to trust so many of his emotions. His heart aches at his inability to give her the answer that she wants, even though he knows it’s for the best that he doesn’t jump right into the first stages of a relationship after the turmoil that he has gone through with Damien.

“Listen, Sam,” he says, trying to let her down as gently as possible. “You… You’re absolutely amazing. Probably the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. You did so much to keep me sane during those last couple of months in 1810. But,” and he hates how her face falls at the last word, “I don’t think I’m in a good place to be with anyone right now. I’m sorry.”

“No, um, I get it.” Sam lets out a trembling exhale. She continues stroking Peregrine’s fur, and he rubs against her hand comfortingly. “You’ve been through a lot, with everything at the AM and then Damien hijacking your rescue, and… Well, it was probably stupid for me to get my hopes up, wasn’t it? I should have just let us stay friends instead of making things weird.”

“It wasn’t stupid, and you haven’t made things weird,” Mark assures her. “And I mean, I’m not saying that things can never happen between us _ever_. I just… I think things will be a little less likely to immediately crash and burn if I take some time for myself first, you know?”

She nods, disappointed but ultimately understanding. “Right. I—I think I can handle being friends for now. Besides, I don’t really know how to do the whole dating thing in the first place. So I guess it’s a relief, in a way.”

Her thoughts tell him that she is not entirely convinced of what she is saying, but Mark decides not to press the issue further for now. “I’m just glad to be back, honestly,” he says. “Let’s just say that the past few months have been the road trip from hell.”

“Did Damien...” Sam begins.

She breaks off with a frown, and Mark knows that the unspoken end of her question is about the nature of his relationship with Damien. He cannot muster up the same lie that he told Joan, nor can he bring himself to tell her the truth. There is so much about the situation that she will not be able to understand, that even _he_ doesn’t understand, and it will take a long time for him to untangle everything about him and Damien into something that makes sense to an outside observer.

“We should probably go back out to the waiting room,” he says in a prompt change of subject. The thoughts coming from the other side of the wall are less distinct than what he hears from Sam, but with every passing second he becomes more aware of a frantic stream of what-ifs and fears of inadequacy that must belong to Joan. “I can hear Joan starting to freak out a little.”

“Really? I don’t hear any—Oh, right, you mean in her thoughts,” says Sam. “I swear to God, if Damien has done anything else to screw things up…”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure if he tried anything, Joanie would kill him before either of us even got to him,” Mark replies grimly.

He opens the door into the waiting room. Damien sits on the couch looking thoroughly miserable, and although his nose has stopped bleeding he still clutches a wad of bloodied tissues between his hands. Joan and Chloe stand around him, their thoughts buzzing like a nest of restless hornets as they figure out what to do next.

“Is everything okay?” Mark asks. “I heard you freaking out.”

Joan frowns. “I was _not_ ‘freaking out.’”

“In your thoughts you were a little,” he says, not having the patience to help her conceal how far out of her depth she is when it comes to Damien’s loss of ability.

They then dig into the heart of the issue: the revelation that Mark’s control over Damien is so powerful that he will take orders from anyone as long as Mark wants him to stay cooperative. He can feel Varinia growing increasingly alarmed at the clear evidence that his hold over Damien is much more severe than they originally believed, and he feels equally on edge about the deeper consequences of the rebound. Everyone’s worried thoughts swarm around him throughout their discussion, reinforcing how much he has unintentionally fucked everything up by yanking Damien’s ability out of him.

“Can we just take him back to his home?” Sam suggests. “Check in on him from time to time?”

“Good idea, Sam,” says Joan. “Except _I_ will check in on him. You are not to go near him.”

“Joan—” Mark begins, because even if he wasn’t able to hear her thoughts he knows where this is going. Between Sam greeting Damien with a punch and Mark putting him into this state in the first place, of _course_ she does not trust either of them to be alone with him.

“It’s for the best,” Joan continues past his interruption. “For both of you. We’ll take Damien back to his apartment, and then you’re coming back to mine. I am _not_ letting you out of my sight again.”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna get old,” Mark mutters, hating how she sounds more like an overprotective mother than his sister.

“I can take Damien,” offers Chloe. “You get Mark home safely.”

“Chloe, I really don’t think—”

The outer door leading into the hallway opens, interrupting Joan’s words. All eyes in the room, both human and daemon, turn toward the source of the noise, and even Mena pokes her head up from where she has been hiding inside Damien’s sweatshirt. A teenage boy, tall and athletic, has entered the waiting room with his wolf daemon walking alongside him. They both stop in their tracks at the chaotic sight that Mark can only assume is _not_ a usual scene found in Joan’s waiting room.

“Um, hey, Dr. Bright,” the boy says. “What’s going on?”

Among the cacophony of thoughts in the room, Mark clearly hears Joan’s internal exclamation of _Fuck_. “Oh Christ, I forgot it was Sunday,” is all that she says aloud. She rubs her forehead with a weary hand, and Phoebus clicks his beak in agitation as he ruffles his feathers in an unsettled motion.

The boy continues to take in the sight in front of him. “Chloe, Sam, hi,” he says. He peers around the group of people gathered in front of the couch and then frowns. “Uh, is that Damien?”

“Caleb, I’m very sorry about this,” says Joan, maintaining a calm facade despite her panicked thoughts. “I, um, I seem to have lost track of time, and things have gotten a little hectic. Why don’t you go into my office, and I’ll be right in?”

Between Joan’s words and the mental information flowing into him from every direction, Mark is now able to fill in the blanks to figure out that this boy, Caleb, is Joan’s empath patient who reminds her of him. He feels Caleb’s ability calling out to him, and upon fully grasping onto it a rush of emotions hits him in full force: confusion, fear, anxiety, and a deep emptiness that he cannot quite put a name to. The sheer emotional volume threatens to overwhelm him, and he does not have the mental capacity to keep everyone’s thoughts and feelings contained inside him. He has to process at least _some_ of it out loud as all of the pieces fall into place for both him and Caleb, and every word that he speaks brings him a sense of irritation that could only belong to Joan.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Joan declares, putting a swift end to the conversation that ensues. “Caleb doesn’t need to know anything more. He’s involved enough as it is.”

“Why, because he—” Mark hears a distinct thought from her about _Wadsworth_ and _nephew_ and _dating_. His stomach turns in his usual reaction to the woman who did so much to torment him, but he pushes past it to try to connect the dots. “Wait, what does Wadsworth—Wadsworth has a nephew? Wait, he’s _dating_ Wadsworth’s nephew?”

He knows that he has said too much from the moment the words leave his mouth. Chloe gives a groan of “Oh God, Mark” as her daemon hides his face with his wings, Sam’s stiflingly anxious feelings increase sharply, and Joan lets out a deep sigh of both frustration and defeat. The loudest reaction comes from Caleb, whose confusion bounces back and forth between his ability and Mark’s emulation of it until the feeling drowns out everything else.

“What? Who’s Wadsworth?” Caleb asks.

“I _said_ , that’s enough,” says Joan. Mark hates being fully aware of how much she, his big sister who for most of his life always seemed to have the answer to everything, does not trust herself to handle this situation despite being the authority here. “Caleb, I’ll try to explain everything the best I can once we’re in my office. Chloe and Sam, make sure Damien gets home. Mark, stay put for now. _Don’t_ go with them.”

Mark opens his mouth to protest, but Varinia nudges him and shakes her head in a wordless reminder that arguing will get him nowhere. He offers a resigned “Yeah, okay” as Joan ushers Caleb into her office. The wolf daemon glances back in curiosity at the scene that she and her human have left behind before the door closes to begin what Mark assumes will be a less than normal therapy session.

“Well, I guess I fucked that up, didn’t I?” he says. He sinks down onto the couch on the furthest cushion from Damien, exhausted from having to juggle so many abilities at once.

“Don’t worry, I totally get it,” Chloe assures him. “Sometimes there’s just so much going on in your head that you can’t keep everything in. I probably would have done the same thing. And no, you didn’t accidentally out him,” she adds, picking up on one of his thoughts and speaking it aloud for everyone’s benefit. “All of us here already know that he’s dating Adam. Even Damien.” She shoots a glare at Damien, who remains eerily quiet in the face of the commotion of the past few minutes.

“Yeah, Damien, care to explain why you and one of Joanie’s teenage patients seem to know each other?” Mark asks, remembering how Caleb had recognized Damien.

“I ran into him and his boyfriend one day outside the office,” Damien replies dully. “I barely know the guy.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” says Mark, skeptical despite the constant will that he imposes on Damien to tell the truth. “Considering your track record, I don’t believe for a second that you just _happened_ to run into them.”

“Considering his track record?” Sam repeats. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Okay, I think it’s time to take you home, Damien,” Chloe says in swift interruption before the situation escalates even further. Her clear thought of _Don’t worry, I’ve got this_ stretches out to Mark in reassurance. “Sam, you’ll keep me company, right?”

“Um, yes.” Sam casts an apprehensive look at Damien. “Of course.”

“No way,” Damien says. A distinct spike of anger and even fear accompanies the sharp reply. The surge of emotion fits strangely inside Mark with rough edges that chafe against everything else that he feels. “She punched me in the face. I don’t want her anywhere near me.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t have a say in the matter, do you?” Mark snaps back. “Tough fucking luck.”

Damien scowls. “That’s all you have to say to me?”

“Oh, trust me, there’s a lot more that I want to say to you,” says Mark. “But as much as I hate to admit it, Joan’s right. We need some distance from each other so that maybe whatever the hell happened to you will wear off. And it’s probably better for us to have a clean break from each other with the least possible amount of drama. So I’m not going to say anything to you other than goodbye.”

An uncertain silence falls after these words. Before Mark can focus upon anyone’s thoughts to try to bridge his way past the lull in the conversation, Sam opens her mouth to speak. 

“So, um, I know you don’t have a phone right now,” she says. “But if you ever want to talk or hang out or anything like that, Joan has my number. You can call or text me whenever. I’m usually not very busy.” An unspoken thought of _Oh God, I hope that doesn’t sound too desperate pathetic_ follows her words, and Mark feels the uncomfortable, prickling heat of her embarrassment spreading through him.

“Yeah, I’ll definitely take you up on that.” He will need some company in the coming days while Joan is at work, and he’d much rather spend time with Sam than sit around worrying about how Damien is coping with being alone and powerless. “Thanks.”

Chloe looks from him to Sam, undoubtedly following along with their thoughts to figure out what relationship they have now that they both exist in the same space and time. _Wait, this isn’t a date thing?_ she asks Mark in the pathway between their minds, her question rising to the surface among all of the other background noise. _I thought the two of you were into each other._

 _It’s complicated_ , is all Mark offers in response.

Chloe frowns in Damien’s direction with an indistinct suspicion about how Mark may have been influenced into having feelings for him. After hearing the same concern from three different people in a short period of time, he is starting to think that this is something that they have all gotten together and talked about before his return. He wonders if they would have these same worries if he wasn’t openly bisexual, but that train of thought leads him nowhere good.

“Well, we should head out now,” Chloe says, thankfully choosing not to outwardly comment on anything that she might have discovered in Mark’s mind. “It was nice to finally meet you, Mark.”

“Yeah, you too,” he replies.

Chloe motions to Damien as her daemon spreads his webbed wings to fly toward her. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

Against his better judgment, Mark stands up and reaches to grab Damien’s arm to stop him in mid-motion of taking a step toward the door. Damien freezes, his surprise leaking into him at the first touch exchanged between them since Mark hijacked his ability. He does not pull away from him, and something in his gaze makes Mark’s emotions swell in a manner that is distinct from the empathy that he is borrowing.

“Don’t cause any trouble for them,” Mark says, ignoring the pull in the pit of his stomach and choosing to focus on the practical things that he wants from Damien. “And when you get home, make sure you… I don’t know. Do everything you need to do to be a functioning adult. You know how to do that, right?”

Damien nods blankly without any mental pushback of rebellion. Other than the brief bursts of anger, Mark hasn’t been able to figure out which of the other emotions inside of him belong to Damien, but now the indistinct empty feeling grows louder in a way that makes its source clear.

“Good,” Mark says. He lets go of Damien’s arm. “Don’t fuck this up.”

As Damien walks away with Sam and Chloe, Mena pokes her head out of his hoodie and looks back to where Varinia remains at Mark’s side. Varinia stares back at her in silence and then approaches Peregrine in a brazen display of where her affections lie. Although Mark and Sam remain uncertain in their interactions with each other, their daemons seem to have come to a comfortable understanding in the short time since their reunion. Peregrine murmurs something into Varinia’s ear, and she casts a glance at Mark before nodding decisively. Mark isn’t even sure if Sam has noticed the exchange between the two daemons, and by the time Sam, Chloe, and Damien are at the waiting room door Peregrine has already hurried to his human’s side as if he’d never hung back.

“See you later,” Chloe offers over her shoulder in a cheerful goodbye, and Sam echoes her with “Bye, Mark.”

Mark lifts a hand in farewell before the door closes behind them. He hasn’t realized how loud everyone’s thoughts were until Chloe leaves the range of his ability, finally allowing him to hear himself think without the intrusion of everyone else’s questions and worries. Being alone in the waiting room also makes him more attuned to the emotions coming from inside Joan’s office. The patience and concentration must be hers, judging by how it fits inside of him so familiarly. Caleb’s emotions are more scattered—confusion, worry, and curiosity rising all at once—and they are much louder than anything that belongs to Joan.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had to deal with so many abilities at once,” says Varinia. “Really takes you back, huh?”

Mark sinks down onto the couch. “I’d rather not think about it, to be honest.”

He consciously steers his thoughts away from the many times when he’d been forced to find the limit of how many abilities he can share at one time—usually to the point of feeling like he is going to burst from the amount of power flowing through him. It doesn’t help that his memories of Wadsworth and her actions remain fresh in his mind after having learned that one of Joan’s patients is dating her nephew. He hopes for Caleb’s sake that Wadsworth’s cold and ruthless nature does not run in her family, and that his boyfriend is the opposite of the monster that his aunt is.

“Right, sorry,” says Varinia.

He leans forward to run his fingers through the fur at the scruff of her neck in reassurance that there are no hard feelings between them. “What did Peregrine say to you before everyone left?” he asks.

“Nothing,” she replies, immediately evasive.

“It’s not like you to lie to me, Rin.” He tries to keep his response teasing, but he realizes too late that his words verge upon guilt-tripping.

“He told me to take care of you,” she admits, because neither of them has ever been good at keeping secrets from each other. “Sam’s obviously worried about you.”

“Of course she is,” Mark murmurs. He doesn’t blame her for worrying, but he doesn’t need to be the subject of additional concern when he already has Joan fussing over him in full overprotective mode. “But we’re home now. We have her and Joanie. We’re going to be okay.”

“We’re not okay, Mark,” Varinia says, voicing the quiet thought in the back of his mind that he has been ignoring for months. “We’re kind of really fucked up.”

Mark lets out a shaking breath as his brave front crumbles away. “I know.”

She jumps up onto the couch so that she can comfortably rest her head in his lap. He continues to pet her, trying to distract himself from the torrent of emotions inside of him. He cannot silence the anger that rises up, however, and a fresh wave of fury surges through him at the reminder of how so much of his life has been taken away from him. Today should have been one of the happiest days of his life, but instead he is now drowning in the complicated circumstances that surround his return. Wadsworth lurks in the back of his mind, stalking through his thoughts like the threatening paths that her daemon used to pace in front of him, and he _hates_ how he cannot get rid of the memories of what he has endured no matter how tightly he locks them away. How can he ever believe that he is safe when he is now in the same city as her, and the place that once held him prisoner is only a half-hour’s drive away?

As the reality of his situation closes in around him, everything feels too big to be contained in his body. It’s as if his emotions are being reflected back into him, growing larger with every refraction until he is a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of anger and fear. He stands up from the couch and paces back and forth in agitation, shaking out his hands as if the motion will force all of the overwhelming emotions out of him.

“You’re freaking out a little,” Varinia notes, although she too has noticeably tensed where she remains on the couch.

“Yeah, no shit I’m freaking out,” he says. “Why aren’t you freaking out with me?”

“Because one of us has to at least _try_ to stay calm, and obviously it’s not going to be you so that just leaves me, doesn’t it?” she retorts. 

Her angry words halt his steps as he rounds on her. “Jeez, sorry for having an emotional reaction to all the shit we’ve been through now that we don’t have to repress everything to keep Damien from asking about it. Maybe I should just _stop_ feeling things, right? But oh wait, I can’t, because there’s a fucking empath in the next room making me feel everyone _else’s_ feelings too!”

Varinia hangs her head in a silent apology. Mark immediately regrets having raised his voice at her, even though she’d spoken harshly to him first. Disagreements between a person and their daemon are a natural part of life, but hostile tension to this extent is rarely a good sign. Mark’s anger at Varinia indicates that he is truly angry at _himself_ , and he knows that Joan would have a lot to say from a psychological standpoint about what has occurred.

He takes a deep breath and seeks out the familiarity of Joan’s emotions in the midst of everything that overwhelms him. Her calmness envelops him like a warm embrace, reminding him of all the times that she would hug him tightly and assure him that everything is going to be okay. All of the other emotions fade as if they are being gently pulled away from him, and a sense of peacefulness flows through him with the same strength as his previous anger and fear.

He collapses onto the couch, suddenly aware of how utterly exhausted he is. After months of getting nothing but a patchy few hours of sleep at a time, he can now barely keep his eyes open. He fluffs up one of the throw pillows on the couch and lies down to rest his head upon it. Varinia curls up next to him, squeezing herself into the remaining space between his body and the edge of the couch cushion as he drapes an arm over her to hold her close.

“Are we good?” she asks him.

He nods. “Yeah. Sorry for shouting at you.”

“‘S okay,” she replies in easy forgiveness. “I know it wasn’t all you. Some of it had to be coming from Caleb too.”

“But who’s to say that _my_ emotions weren’t what was making him angry in the first place?” he says, remembering the feedback loops that he’d often get caught in when the AM paired him with an empath. “The last thing I need is to pull an innocent kid into my bullshit.”

“Odds are he’s already been pulled into it, with the whole ‘dating Wadsworth’s nephew’ thing,” she reminds him.

Mark wants to respond, but he is too tired to form any words beyond a murmur of acknowledgement. He must have drifted off to sleep soon after, because the next thing that he is aware of is someone gently shaking him awake. His eyes snap open at Varinia’s yelp of surprise, and through the hazy disorientation of waking from a nap he sees that Joan is standing at his side.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” she says.

Mark sits up and rubs the drowsiness out of his eyes. “How long was I asleep?” he asks.

“Not much more than an hour, I think. Caleb’s appointment ended a little while ago, and I’ve finished up all of the other work that I need to do here. We can head home whenever you’re ready.”

Sure enough, Mark no longer senses Caleb’s ability in his vicinity. Relief floods through him at how he is finally in Joan’s company without any abilities getting in the way. Most people would be thrilled to be able to read their sibling’s mind, plant thoughts in their head, or feel their emotions, but Mark would much rather interact with his sister as an ordinary person. In their younger years she had always been that safe place for him, where he didn’t need to worry about the strange and often unexplainable things that happened around him because of his ability. Although the concept of “safe” has now been largely lost to him, he still seeks that familiar comfort from her.

“Was Caleb freaking out when he was in your office?” he asks.

Joan frowns. “How did you—Ah, right. You must have been able to feel his emotions just as strongly. Why do you ask?”

“I think there was a weird emotional feedback loop going on between the two of us for a little while. But you must have calmed him down, right? Because I could feel that too. Probably why I was able to pass out so easily,” he adds in an afterthought.

“You know that I can’t discuss my patients or their sessions with you,” Joan reminds him.

“Right, of course. Gotta follow those therapist rules.” Leaving aside his questions about Caleb and Wadsworth's nephew that he knows he won’t get answers to, he pushes forward with one of the other pressing issues on his mind. “Do you know if Damien made it home okay?”

“I checked in with Sam after Caleb left. Damien should be okay, but apparently he was still obeying Sam and Chloe’s commands with minimal resistance even when he was outside of the range of your ability.”

“Fuck.” Mark lets out the long breath of a sigh. “That’s not good, is it?”

“No. It’s not.”

Joan’s face scrunches up with worry, and Mark wonders how much she isn’t telling him about the current situation. Phoebus looks similarly concerned where he is perched on an arm of the couch, and when Varinia approaches him he nudges the tip of his beak against her fur in a gesture of comfort.

“I swear, I didn’t mean for all of this stuff with Damien to happen,” Mark says. “I didn’t _want_ to break him.”

“I know you didn’t,” Joan assures him. “But what’s done is done. Now we just have to figure out what to do next.”

Mark gives a brief, bitter laugh as he stands up from the couch. “Is it weird that I’m not really sure how to do that anymore? Decide what to do next, I mean.”

“We’ll take it one step at a time,” says Joan. “Nobody’s expecting you to adjust right away. I’m just…” She trails off into a frown, and briefly Mark _does_ wish that he could know what worries currently fill her mind. “I’m glad you’re back,” she eventually finishes.

“Yeah.” He does not say anything about his suspicion that coming home is not an ending or a beginning, but rather the eye of a hurricane before his life comes crashing down again. Dwelling on the future will not serve him well, however, and so he forces a smile to create the illusion that he is okay. “Me too.”


	8. Chapter 8

The week after Mark’s return passes by in a strange haze, and adapting to the stability and security of being in a safe place has been much more difficult than he has expected. Joan does her best to make her apartment feel like home to him, of course, especially when she gives him some of his belongings that she kept in storage while he was missing. It’s like unearthing a time capsule as he goes through what she had taken from the apartment that he’d been sharing with a few friends after graduating from college, and he is only a little embarrassed at the thought of what she might have found while sorting through his things after his disappearance. What those boxes _do_ contain is more important: most of his old clothes, his now ancient laptop that carried him through four years of college, a collection of some of his favorite books and DVDs, and—most importantly—his beloved camera. The items feel like they belong in another life, to a different man who hasn’t undergone multiple traumas, but they bring him a sense of comfort and familiarity that he has not experienced in a long time.

He spends the majority of those first several days planted on the couch in Joan’s living room, beginning the long journey of catching up on the media that he has missed during the last five years. The Tuesday afternoon nine days after coming home is no exception. To his credit, because he knows Joan will ask him about it when she gets home, he _did_ go out earlier in the day, visiting Sam for a cup of tea and friendly conversation and then snapping some photos on his way home. Upon his return to Joan’s apartment he is exhausted, no longer energized from being out in the world when he fears that everyone he passes on the street secretly seeks to bring him back to the AM. Instead he can only muster the motivation to get a beer from the fridge and turn on the TV, losing himself in a couple episodes of _Community_ with Varinia snuggled close to him.

When he is halfway through the second episode that he has put on, the phone rings. As far as Mark can tell, Joan rarely gets any worthwhile calls on her landline, and so he lets the answering machine pick up. The initial silence makes Mark think that the caller has decided not to leave a message, but then a familiar voice startles him into pausing the TV’s playback.

“Oh, you’ve got to be _kidding_ me,” Varinia mutters in irritation upon recognizing the voice.

“Mark, are you there?” Damien asks in the message. “Come on, pick up the phone. I just—I just want to talk to you.” A hint of earnest desperation enters his voice, but it vanishes as quickly as it comes. “I know you’re probably home. Come _on_. Mark. Mark. Maaaaark—”

He rises from the couch, if only to silence Damien’s thoroughly obnoxious attempts to get his attention. “Don’t even think about it,” Varinia warns him, but he ignores her and picks up the phone anyway.

“Oh my God, _what_?” he says to Damien with no further greeting.

“Wow. You—You actually answered,” Damien replies with a trace of surprise that suggests that he hasn’t expected this particular plan to work.

“Yeah, only because you were being so goddamn annoying. And you’re _really_ not thinking things through, by the way. What if Joan was here and heard your message? Or, even worse, picked up the phone?”

“It’s two in the afternoon on a weekday,” says Damien. “She’s _never_ home right now.”

His confident familiarity with Joan’s schedule catches Mark off guard until he remembers how his glimpse into Damien’s calendar revealed that he’d once been tracking her daily whereabouts. The invasion of her privacy angers him all over again, even though he supposes that anyone, regardless of their stalking habits, could easily assume that someone with a mostly 9-5 job would be working at this hour.

“Still, she wouldn’t be happy if she found out that you called,” he insists. “She was _very_ clear that we shouldn’t be in contact anymore, and as much as I hate the whole mother hen thing that she has going on right now, she’s right. We need to keep our distance from each other, at least until your ability comes back. And probably after then too.”

“Is that what you really want, though?” Damien asks.

It takes Mark a moment to remember that he does not have to give into Damien’s demands anymore. The question probes at him with its need for an answer, sliding into the uncertain portion of his thoughts and reminding him that Joan might _not_ know what is best for him.

“Honestly,” he admits, “I don’t know what the fuck I want anymore.”

Damien does not respond. Mark feels fairly foolish, standing here in the middle of the kitchen on the phone with the man who kidnapped him and lied to him for months. He _should_ end the call right now, but Damien’s voice is like that first sip of scotch in years that Mark drank a week ago when he’d surreptitiously stolen the bottle from Joan’s liquor cabinet like he’s a teenager sneaking alcohol when his parents aren’t home. He knows that it’s a bad idea to go down this road, but at the same time he cannot resist how much of a rush it gives him.

“Hang up the phone, Mark,” Varinia tells him from where she has followed him into the kitchen.

“Sounds like Varinia knows what _she_ wants,” says Damien, obviously able to hear her voice through the phone.

“Ignore her,” Mark replies. He shoots a glare at her and receives a dirty look in return. Then, pushing through the beginning of an uncertain silence, he asks, “Why are you really calling, Damien?”

“Because I’m bored,” Damien says unconvincingly.

“Damien.” Even though he cannot use Damien’s ability without being in physical proximity to him, Mark wonders if the sound of his voice alone can trigger the obedience that has kept him mostly compliant since the rebound incident. “Come on, be honest with me.”

A resigned sigh comes through the phone’s speaker. “All right, fine. I miss you. Happy?”

“Seriously?” Mark scoffs. “You _miss_ me? Whatever happened to you hating me because I broke your brain and now you can’t use your ability anymore?”

“I can hate what you did and miss you at the same time, you know,” Damien replies, unmistakably surly.

Mark hoists himself up to sit on the kitchen counter. “Yeah, I definitely know how that feels,” he mutters.

“So you’ve missed me too, huh?” Damien sounds smugger than anything Mark has heard from him since his ability caved in on itself.

“I was thinking more about how I still hate your guts for the whole ‘kidnapping and lying to me for months’ thing. But…” Mark trails off, unsure of how to put his thoughts into words without sounding like the world’s biggest victim of Stockholm syndrome. He’s sure that’s one phrase that Joan would use to describe what he has gone through, if her professional boundaries didn’t prevent her from giving therapy to her own brother. “I don’t know, it’s complicated. Sure, you’re an absolute dick who has done a _lot_ of things to make me hate you. But you also took care of me after the coma and made sure that the AM wasn’t going to come after us. And you actually weren’t terrible company when you weren't manipulating me or forcing me to talk about my trauma. So I guess…” He exhales a deep breath as he is forced to acknowledge the part of him that _was_ indeed happy to hear Damien’s voice on the answering machine. “In a weird and probably incredibly stupid way, yeah, I've missed you.”

“But you don’t need me anymore, right?” says Damien. “Now that you’ve got your sister and Sam.” A certain amount of vitriol enters his voice when he says Sam’s name.

“Are you…” Mark wets his lips, unsure if he should press forward with the question that lingers in the back of his mind. “Are you jealous of Sam?”

“No,” Damien replies, his response too quick to be fully honest.

“Oh my God.” Mark slides off the counter and paces a few steps across the kitchen floor. “You are. You're _jealous_ of her.”

“I just think it’s a little hurtful that you ran straight into her arms the second you came back, even after everything that happened between us.”

Mark almost laughs at how comically lacking in self-awareness Damien is about the situation. “Sam and I are just friends,” he says. “Even though I _know_ she wants us to be more than that. But I told her that I need to take some time to get myself sorted out before I can be anything more to her. Which is totally stupid, because here I am with this wonderful, amazing woman right in front of me, someone who’s a much better person than you’ll ever be because at least she owns up to her mistakes. And yet I can’t commit to being with her because part of me can’t stop thinking about _you_.”

Damien falls silent. “You…” he eventually begins. “You can’t stop thinking about me?”

The repetition of Mark’s confession feels like a trap, as if Damien has cornered him against a wall with his own words. “No, I can’t.” He halts his pacing steps and laughs humorlessly. “Huh, looks like you can still pull the truth out of me even without your ability.”

“Well, how about that.”

The tone of Damien’s response carries an odd combination of satisfaction and regret, and it makes Mark want to chug the rest of the beer that he has left on the coffee table. He retrieves the bottle and drinks deeply to fill the silence on the other end of the phone. His heart pounds in his chest not out of fear or nervousness but rather in exhilaration, similar to how he felt whenever he and Damien kissed or laid hands on each other’s daemons. 

“If Joanie wasn’t so determined to have us keep our distance from each other,” he says, not sure if he wants to know the answer, “would you be knocking on my door right now?”

“I don’t see the point,” Damien replies. “At least over the phone you can’t use my ability against me.”

“So you’re just going to keep calling me, is that it?” Mark says, unable to argue with Damien’s logic when he shares a similar sense of relief in how he currently does not have to worry about unconsciously tapping into Damien’s ability.

“I don’t see why not. Dr. B. never specifically said anything about us not being allowed to talk on the phone. She only said she didn’t want us near each other. Technically, I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“Is that seriously how you’re justifying yourself?” Mark asks. “With a loophole?”

“Oh, don’t get all high and mighty about it. I don’t see you hanging up the phone either.”

“God, you really _are_ lonely when you can’t use your ability to prey on others,” Mark says. “Have you ever considered, I don’t know, going out and meeting people like a normal person? Now that you don’t have to worry about your ability getting in the way?”

“Don’t you get it?” A harsh edge enters Damien’s voice. “I don’t know _how_ to interact with people without my ability. You’re the only one who…”

He trails off into silence, and Mark isn’t sure whether he wants to know how that sentence was going to end. His initial instinct is to apologize to Damien, as if he has become conditioned into immediately offering remorse whenever Damien is frustrated or angry. Refusing to succumb to the specter of control, he bites back the apology, although he cannot ignore the pity that seeps into him.

“Is it getting better?” he asks. “You can, you know, do things without being told now?”

“Sometimes,” Damien replies. “Your sister’s been helping with that, even though she obviously couldn’t care less about whether I get better.”

It takes Mark a moment to process what he has said. “Wait, you’ve been seeing Joanie?” he asks. “Why didn’t you mention that earlier?”

“I thought she would’ve told you already,” says Damien. “Or complained about me to you, or whatever. She always seems to have a lot of _opinions_ on me.”

“No, she hasn’t said anything.”

There Joan goes with her secrets again, and Mark suspects that she hasn’t said anything to him out of a belief that she has to protect him from Damien. Clearly she has not considered the possibility of Damien taking the initiative to contact him, because otherwise he is sure that this call would have never happened. It seems like a huge oversight on Joan’s part, especially considering her recent tendency toward overprotectiveness.

“Are you going to tell her that you called me next time you see her?” he asks.

“No,” Damien replies with a reassuring lack of hesitation. “Are _you_ going to tell her?”

“Definitely not.”

The response comes out of Mark’s mouth automatically before he realizes that the mutual secrets between him and Joan are starting to pile up beyond his control. Guilt twists uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach at how he is continuing to hide things from her after they promised they would be more honest with each other, but he pushes the feeling aside as something to be dealt with later.

“Just don’t call this number again,” he says. “I’ll give you my cell number in case you really want to talk or whatever.” He doesn’t imagine that they’ll have much to talk about now that he has the peace of mind that Damien is at least somewhat functioning on his own, but he makes the offer regardless. After all, _something_ has caused him to not immediately hang up five seconds after answering the phone, even if he would rather not think about what that reason is.

“Thanks,” says Damien after Mark has told him his number. “I’ll text you so you can have my number too.”

“Okay. But first, go outside or something,” Mark tells him, aware of how hypocritical the suggestion is when he himself cannot find the motivation to leave Joan’s apartment on most days. “Take a walk, enjoy some fresh air, I don’t care. As long as you don’t spend the rest of the day sitting around feeling sorry for yourself.”

Damien gives a grumble of irritation. “Whatever. Talk to you soon.”

“Yeah, okay,” Mark says, still unsure of what to make of this conversation. “Bye.”

He ends the call and returns the phone to its cradle. Upon noticing the indicator on Joan’s answering machine that shows the partial message that Damien has left, he deletes the evidence of the phone call. He takes another sip of beer, waiting for Varinia to speak up instead of silently glaring at him in disapproval.

“What the hell, Mark?” she demands, right on cue.

He sighs in weary exasperation. “Oh, boy. Here we go.”

“You should have never answered that phone,” she says. “We’ve been free from him for over a week now. Things were _good_. And now you had to go and ruin all of that by—”

“Well, ‘good’ is kind of a strong word,” Mark interrupts her. “I know we try to hide it, but we can’t deny that things haven’t exactly been great since we’ve been back.”

“Yeah, because of the ‘unaddressed trauma’ or whatever Joanie wants to call it. Not because we haven’t been seeing him.”

“I just wanted to make sure he was okay.” His initial reason for picking up the phone had been merely to shut Damien up, but as soon as he became sucked into the conversation his priorities had shifted as all of his complicated feelings for Damien returned in full force. “It _is_ sort of my fault that he’s like this.”

“You don’t owe him anything,” Varinia reminds him. “ _Especially_ not another phone call. You now know he’s coping with everything about as well as we could expect him to. You should just leave it at that. ‘In case you really want to talk or whatever,’ my ass.” She derisively imitates Mark’s response with those last words.

“I know, I know. But…” He takes another drink, wishing he had a glass of scotch instead. “Nothing about this is simple, Rin. You should know that.”

She gives a skeptical scoff in response. “I’m telling Joan that you talked to him.”

“No, you’re fucking not,” Mark retorts. White-hot anger courses through his veins at the potential act of betrayal by his own daemon. He takes a threatening step toward her, and she does not shrink back from his approach. “If you say even one word to her about this, I’ll—”

He breaks off, remembering that anything that he says or does against Varinia will cause _him_ pain as well, and he does not want to go down that particular road right now. Beneath the surface of her angry gaze, he sees a mixture of concern and fear that makes him step back. He inhales a deep breath and exhales it slowly, letting his flash of fury fade away.

“ _Please_ don’t tell her. Or Phoebus, either,” he implores. “I know the whole ‘no secrets’ thing is something that she and I both need to work on, but this is… It’ll make things worse if she knows. I need to figure out whatever that call was for myself without her trying to tell me what’s best for me. You understand that, right?”

She lets out a huffy breath of exasperation. “Okay. I still think getting back in contact with him is a terrible idea. But I won’t rat you out for now.”

Mark reaches toward her in a tentative gesture. She moves closer to him and presses her nose into his hand reassuringly as he pets her. He believes her promise to not reveal what has happened here, but the small comfort does not alleviate the uneasiness that has overcome him.

“Look at what he's doing to us,” Varinia says. “Whenever we’ve disagreed about something over the past three months, it’s almost always been about him.”

“It’s not like we’ve never had disagreements before,” Mark reminds her.

“Yeah, but not like this,” she replies softly.

He does not quite know what to make of this statement, nor does he want to accept the implications of what she is saying. With no further words to her, he returns to the living room to resume his lazy position in front of the TV. When he checks his phone, he sees that he has a new text from a number he doesn’t recognize.

 _Hey its me_ , it reads.

 _Damien?_ Mark texts in response.

He immediately receives the reply of _yeah who else_. Then, in another message that follows the brief indicator that Damien is typing: _talk to you again next time im bored or w/e_.

 _Lol good to know I’m just a way to avoid boredom_ , Mark replies.

The text remains seen but unanswered, which leads him to wonder just how big of a mistake he has made by letting Damien into his life once more.

* * *

No matter how much Mark tells himself that Joan’s guest bedroom is a safe and familiar place and he has nothing to be afraid of, the state of his nightmares has not improved even after being home for almost three weeks.

His most recent nightmare takes him back to the AM, revisiting the memories of when masked doctors would cut him open to try to discover the secrets of his atypical biology. In reality, he’d get knocked out via a sedative or anesthesia and wake up hours later with new surgical scars on his body and no idea of what was done to put them there, but in this dream he has been awake and aware the whole time, crying out in pain as the scalpel sliced into his skin. Wadsworth is there as well, observing the scene with her cold, sharp gaze, and it is when her keen interest turns into a terrifying smile of triumph that he wakes up with a scream fresh on his lips as he thrashes under his blankets. The screams don’t stop coming, continuing to tear their way out of his throat as the weight of everything in the nightmare presses against him from all sides until he knows nothing else.

He does not notice that the bedroom door has opened until he feels Joan’s hands on his shoulders and hears the gentle tone of her voice. His body curls in on itself as she rubs his back soothingly, and a rush of gratitude passes through him at how she always knows how to make him feel better. He hears Phoebus’s soft words of comfort to Varinia as well, and when he uncurls himself he sees the osprey’s large wingspan stretched protectively across her back as she continues to tremble and whimper.

Mark isn’t sure how much time passes as he sits on his bed, breathing deeply at Joan’s encouragement while she holds his hand tightly in support. Once his mind has cleared, his first thought is how he hates that he has woken Joan up. In many ways he feels like a child again as he remembers all the times in his youth when she was the one he would go to for comfort in the middle of the night rather than his parents. He recalls one instance when he was eight or nine years old when he'd been awake for most of the night throwing up from a stomach bug, and Joan had unhesitatingly stayed at his side the entire time. It’s oddly reassuring how some things don’t change even after twenty years and the strain of distance and disappearance, with illness having been replaced by the undeniable aftereffects of trauma. 

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” he finally says.

“Are you sure?” Joan asks. “If you need anything—”

“I’ll let you know,” he finishes for her. “Go get some sleep.”

“Okay.” She squeezes his hand one last time. “You try to get some more rest too.”

“Yeah, I’ll do my best,” Mark manages to reply.

Phoebus spreads his wings to take flight from the bed and lands on Joan’s outstretched arm. After the door has closed behind them with their departure, Mark lets out another deep exhale of breath, scrubbing his hands across the length of his face before lying down again. Varinia nestles close to him, and the warmth of her body next to him puts his mind more at ease. He stares up at the ceiling as he runs his fingers through her fur, pondering what to do next when his mind and body are not ready to sleep anytime soon.

He should get a drink of water to soothe his throbbing headache and dry throat, but he cannot muster the energy to do anything more than reach for his phone and a pair of headphones that he has left on the bedside table. The lock screen on his phone reads “2:26 A.M.,” and with his generally messed-up sleep schedule he can’t help but think that it is still early in the night. At least Joan will be able to get five or so more hours of sleep before she has to wake up, he thinks as he untangles the cord of his headphones.

He taps the phone’s screen to find something to listen to on Spotify. Despite his generally mixed feelings about how streaming services have mostly replaced owning music over the past five years (except for the hipster-fueled comeback of vinyl), he cannot deny the convenience of having almost everything immediately available to him without having to buy or illegally download individual songs or albums. He initially searches for something relaxing as he scrolls through his recently played artists and playlists, but instead he ends up selecting the Carly Rae Jepsen album that he’d listened to so many times while on the road with Damien. Many of the songs bring him a sense of comfort that he cannot quite explain, and he’s not sure he wants to think more deeply about where that emotion comes from when his only association with the album is those long, uncertain car rides under the hot summer sun.

He closes his eyes and tries to relax, but his mind is too restless to settle into the passiveness of listening to music with no distractions. Instead he cycles through various apps on his phone, and nothing holds his interest until he ends up at his list of recent texting conversations. It’s a short list, because although pre-AM Mark was the kind of guy who had a lot of friends, reconnecting with and expanding his social circle has not been his top priority since his return to the real world. Most of his texting has been with Sam and Damien, the two points of this weird triangle that he is now in the middle of, along with semi-frequent conversations with Chloe as he gets to know her better. Joan still hasn’t fully incorporated texting into her methods of communication, and so from her he only has a few brief back-and-forths, mostly food orders from when she has picked up dinner for them on her way home from work.

He taps a finger to open his ongoing thread with Sam where they talk about everything under the sun in between the times that they see each other in person. A few hours ago they’d been discussing musicals, primarily how Sam can’t wrap her head around how Joan shares Mark’s love for classic musical films and always sings along with him whenever their movie nights follow that theme.

 _I don’t think I’ve ever heard Joan sing before_ , Sam had said in the texts that Mark is re-reading. _Does she get really into it?_

 _Oh yeah_ , Mark had replied. _What she lacks in talent she makes up for in enthusiasm._

_You got all the singing genes in the family then?_

_Most of them. But you’re one to talk, you have the voice of an angel._

_You really think so??_

_an ANGEL_

Mark had then sent a gif of a cat dressed in angel wings and a halo, and most of the rest of the conversation had consisted of them finding increasingly ridiculous cat gifs to send to each other until Mark took his leave to go to bed with a farewell image of a slumbering cat. As he stares at the last text Sam has sent and the input box at the bottom of the interface, he wonders if she is awake right now. After all, she can deeply relate to the terror of revisiting trauma through nightmares, and as far as he can tell she tends to keep even more irregular hours than he does. He types a couple of false starts— _Are you still awake_ and _Sorry for texting so late but_ —before backspacing everything and closing the conversation with the defeated thought that he shouldn’t bother her right now.

“You shouldn’t have sent Joanie away if you need someone to talk to,” Varinia says. “You know she’s always willing to listen.”

Mark shakes his head. As grateful as he is that Joan has pulled him out of tonight’s nightmare-induced breakdown, she can never fully understand everything that he has endured. Despite having made a career out of helping atypicals like him, knowing him for his entire life means that she cannot approach his situation with the same objectiveness with which she views her patients. He may be one of the few atypicals whom she _can’t_ help, and he’s not sure which one of them should feel more like a failure for that.

“You can even talk to me,” Varinia ventures. “I know we’re not always the best at talking about our feelings, but—”

“What the hell would you and I talk about?” Mark replies. “We both had the same nightmare. We _know_ how much the AM fucked us up. There’s nothing more to say about it.”

She nestles closer to him. “I’m just worried, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, _everyone’s_ worried,” Mark murmurs, turning his head to press his face into her fur. He sees the way that everyone looks at him: how they either pity him, want to figure out what’s going on in his head, or both. Only one person doesn’t treat him like he’s a bomb ready to go off at any second, and maybe _that_ is who he should talk to right now even though objectively he knows that doing so is a terrible idea.

Mark picks up his phone from where he has set it down next to him and opens his conversation with Damien that has been steadily growing longer over the past two weeks. They have talked on the phone a few more times since the initial call, mostly during the morning or early afternoon while Joan is at work, but Mark mostly prefers to communicate with him via texting. Over text, everything is even further removed from their complicated face-to-face interactions, with no abilities to muddle their desires and no visual or vocal reminders of the control that they have held over each other.

“Mark—” Varinia begins in warning, but he is already composing a message.

 _Hey are you awake?_ he types, pressing the “send” button with far less hesitation than his aborted texts to Sam.

He lays his phone face-down on his chest, not wanting to fall into the trap of staring at the screen waiting for a response that may not come. It’s a long shot for him to receive a reply, he reminds himself. Damien probably isn’t even awake right now, and Mark is only going to feel like an idiot lying here hoping for an immediate response.

“When I suggested that you talk to someone, I didn’t mean _him_ ,” says Varinia.

Mark continues to ignore her, which earns him a huff of irritation. When his phone vibrates less than a minute later, he initially thinks it’s a phantom sensation, but when he picks it up and checks his notifications he discovers that he has indeed received a text.

 _Its 2:30 in the morning,_ reads Damien’s response. The gray dots below the message indicate that he has more to say, and sure enough an inquiry of _What do you want_ comes through immediately after.

 _Idk I can’t sleep_ , Mark replies, deciding that a vague mention of insomnia is a much better alternative to admitting that he is a grown man who is too afraid of his nightmares to return to slumber. _I’m listening to that Carly Rae Jepsen album you like rn_ , he then adds in an attempt to start a conversation. _Have you listened to the B sides EP that came out recently?_

He sets down his phone again. Varinia continues to scowl at him, but he is in no mood to argue with her right now. Instead, he imagines what Damien might be doing right now: probably lying in his bed with Mena curled up against his neck like she had done so many times before while they were relaxing in a motel room. Briefly, he wonders if Damien is awaiting his responses with the same eagerness that he is, glad to have someone out there to talk to in the middle of the night.

His phone soon buzzes with a response, and he hates the way that his heart swoops in anticipation before he reads the message. He should be having this reaction to Sam’s texts instead—and he does, in the sense that talking to her makes him forget about Damien for a while and remember why he was drawn to her in the first place. With Damien, however, the feeling is more all-consuming in a way that he knows should worry him.

 _No_ , Damien’s text reads in a simple reply.

_You should, it’s good shit._

Mark then sends him the Spotify link to the album. He’s not sure if Damien uses the app, since he had mostly played music from his own library while they were in the car together, but it’s the gesture that counts. 

_ty_ , is all Damien says in a brief expression of thanks.

Upon receiving no further response from him, the burden is now on Mark to continue the conversation. While he thinks of something to say, he reaches out a hand in an automatic motion to pet Varinia only to discover that she is no longer at his side. He peers over the edge of the bed and sees that she is now curled up on the floor, as if she cannot bear to be on the bed with him while he engages in questionable methods of distracting himself from his nightmares.

“Rin?” he says.

She lifts her head. “Oh, good, so you _do_ realize that I’m still here,” she replies sullenly.

“Come back up. You’re being a baby about this.”

“It’s not like I’m hurting us,” she grumbles, referring to how they remain in relatively close proximity to each other. “Not physically, anyway.”

The last part of her statement sinks uncomfortably into the pit of his stomach, but he pushes it away in his feeble attempt to pretend that everything is fine. _Did I wake you up with my first text?_ he asks Damien.

 _No_ , comes the immediate reply, which is soon followed by _haven’t gone to bed yet_.

 _Hooray for the late-night life_ , Mark responds. He does not ask any further questions despite his curiosity about why Damien is still awake at this hour, and he is relieved that he cannot currently use Damien’s ability to accidentally pull that information out of him. If he is going to remain silent about how fifteen minutes ago he was hyperventilating while curled up in a ball on his bed, the least he can do is offer Damien the same courtesy.

 _Good thing we’ve got each other_ , says Damien, and Mark cannot determine whether the sentiment is genuine. As much as he wants to wave it off as sarcasm, there is something weirdly touching—but also a little fucked up—about how he and Damien are sharing this moment together.

 _Well we do have a history of eventful late-night conversations_ , Mark replies.

He presses the “send” button before fully realizing that one of those “eventful late-night conversations” includes the initial kiss that set their relationship on a new and complicated trajectory. It is too late to delete the text when Damien is already responding to it, and either he has a lot to say or he keeps backspacing and then re-typing his response. Soon the gray dots stop completely, which leaves Mark staring at the phone screen feeling distinctly stupid about this whole situation.

 _Are you still there?_ he eventually prompts him. When he still does not receive a response, he adds, _Omg did you fall asleep on me already??_

The second text is enough to get Damien typing again. _wouldn’t dream of it_ , he replies, and once again Mark finds himself reading too much into the possible flirtatiousness of the response. _Your not gonna fall asleep on me either are you?_ Damien then asks at Mark’s hesitation in responding.

 _No way_ , Mark replies.

As their conversation continues, his fingers move across the keyboard with increasing drowsiness until he does indeed fall into a light slumber. When he blearily opens his eyes and checks his phone, over half an hour has passed since the timestamp of the last message that Damien has sent him.

 _Are you still awake_ , says one of the most recent texts, which is followed by _dammit mark you said you wouldn’t fall asleep._

Mark responds with a single sleeping emoji. He doesn’t expect a reply, but he gets one anyway: _ok good night_. The simple response brings a smile to his lips, and it’s the first time he has done so since waking a couple of hours ago with terror coursing through his veins.

He rolls over and settles himself comfortably beneath his blankets, and he does not realize that Varinia hasn’t rejoined him on the bed until long after the next morning has arrived.


	9. Chapter 9

The end of October brings a string of what Mark considers to be the perfect autumn day: cold enough to break out the comfy sweaters, but warm enough to not require a jacket. On days like these, leaving the apartment feels like less of a chore compared to the past few weeks. He has been meaning to take some more outdoor photos lately, getting a few final shots of the bright oranges and reds of fall foliage before the trees drop the last of their leaves for the winter, and a sunny Sunday afternoon ends up providing the perfect opportunity for him to do so.

He walks to a nearby park with his camera in tow, snapping a handful of tree photos as he takes a leisurely stroll down the path. After he is confident that he has several good shots to work with, he turns his attention to anything else that sparks his inspiration. He is crouched near a bench to capture the image of a squirrel that sits upon it when the shadow of a passerby falls upon the perfect composition of the photograph.

“Hey, sorry, do you mind stepping back a little?” Mark says. “I’m trying to get this shot, and—”

He breaks off when he turns his head to acknowledge the person who is casting the shadow. A familiar figure stands in his presence for the first time in almost a month: Damien, clad in his eternal attire of a hoodie and black jeans with Mena sitting at his shoulder and a mostly-smoked cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Mark’s mind immediately reaches out toward his ability, grabbing its edges and taking hold of the slimy sense of control that makes him feel like the world is his to shape to his liking. 

The squirrel that he has been trying to photograph has scampered away by now, and so with a sigh Mark puts away his camera and straightens up to fully face Damien. The quiet growl from Varinia’s tense form beside him warns him that he should put an end to this encounter before it begins. Although the part of him that is tired of being at odds with his daemon _does_ want to walk away without saying a word, his curiosity pushes him to stay rooted in place.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

Damien takes a drag from the cigarette before removing it from between his lips. “Just getting some fresh air,” he replies.

Mark waves away the puff of smoke that Damien has exhaled. “Yeah, I can see that. Any reason why you’re at this particular park? You know, the one that I happen to walk through all the time?”

“What, do you think I’m stalking you or something?” says Damien.

“It’s definitely a possibility.” As much as he doesn’t want to use his ability against him when this past month has mostly been about Damien regaining control of his own mind, Mark cannot suppress his constant desire to hear an honest response from him. “So are you?”

“I—” Damien pushes weakly against him in protest, but Mark remains too powerful for him to resist. “Fuck, stop it. I’ll tell you. I know you live around here, so I was just hoping—”

“That you'd happen to run into me?” Mark finishes for him. “Some people would find that creepy, you know.”

Damien scowls but does not reply. Having reached the end of his cigarette, he tosses away the butt with no regard to how he is littering in the middle of a public park.

“Looks like you finally got that haircut,” he says. 

Mark runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Wow, it’s weird to think that for you the long hair was totally normal.”

“You, uh.” Damien clears his throat and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “You look good.”

“Thanks,” Mark replies.

A coil of excitement tightens in the pit of his stomach at the compliment. He then wonders if Damien has made the choice to say those words to him, or if Mark has accidentally planted one of his own unconscious desires into his head. He recalls how Damien had been surprised to hear Mark offer him a genuine compliment weeks ago before everything went wrong between them. He hates how he has now arrived at an even deeper understanding of what most of Damien’s life with his ability must have been like.

“So what now?” he asks. “Do you want something from me, or did you just come over to say hi? Because if you have nothing else to say, I’d really like to take a couple more photos before—”

“Funny choice of words there,” Damien interrupts him with a humorless chuckle. “Thinking that I can want something when _you’re_ the reason why it doesn’t work like that anymore.”

“You said it was getting better,” Mark says. A month ago, Damien’s mind felt like a void of passiveness with no life of its own beyond the occasional feeble pushback of rebellion, but now it feels stronger and less open to suggestion. However much Joan dislikes having sessions with Damien, whatever she has been doing during their time together seems to be working.

“Yeah, well, that’s when I’m by myself or with Dr. B. This is…”

He trails off, scuffing the sole of one of his sneakers against the ground to kick up a couple of fallen leaves. As much as Mark is determined to not feel sorry for Damien, he _does_ pity him for how his only significant in-person interaction seems to be with his therapist who is only begrudgingly helping him. Not even Mark is that lonely right now, despite how pathetic his life now feels compared to what he had before the AM.

“Well, clearly you still have it in you to want to see me, or else you wouldn’t be here,” he finally says. “Trust me, _I_ definitely didn’t have a say in you showing up like this. My ability may be strong, but it’s not _that_ strong.”

“Fine,” Damien grumbles. “I’ll just leave, then.”

“Wait,” Mark calls out as he walks away. At the command, Damien turns toward him with the blank-faced obedience that Mark hates. “I know we’re not supposed to be seeing each other, but honestly that ship sailed the first time that you called me, so… Want to grab coffee or something?”

He releases his hold over Damien, wanting to give him the freedom of choice to continue walking away if that is what he truly wants. Mena murmurs a quiet warning to Damien as she avoids the metaphorical daggers that Varinia has been glaring at the two of them throughout the conversation, but Damien still takes a few hesitant steps forward.

“No coffee shops,” he says. “I don’t like being around that many people.”

“Oh, sure. It must be _so_ hard for you now that you can’t invade their minds anymore. Welcome to living like a regular human being,” Mark replies, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “But we shouldn’t keep standing here. I guess we could just…” He trails off, realizing what he was about to suggest in an automatic invitation.

“Don't even think about it,” Varinia mutters to him out of the corner of her mouth.

“I guess we could go back to my place,” Mark finishes, fueled mostly by spite against Varinia’s words of caution. “As long as you’re out of there before Joan gets home from work.”

“Back to your place?” Damien repeats blankly.

“Yeah. It’s called a common courtesy.” Of course, Mark is unsure whether someone like Damien deserves courtesy in the first place. He doubts there is ever a good reason to invite the man who kidnapped and manipulated him into his home, although he can definitely think of a few _bad_ reasons that involve what he does and does not feel for Damien. “Unless you have something better to do?”

“No,” Damien grumbles. He kicks at the fallen leaves on the ground again. “Jesus. Can’t believe I’m getting a pity invite.”

“It’s not a pity invite,” says Mark, even though the offer _is_ partially out of a sense of responsibility for Damien’s current state.

“Is it because of the way you feel about me, then?”

Mark lets out a humorless laugh. “The way I feel about you is probably complicated enough to fill an entire book. Maybe even _several_ books. Now come on. Let’s go.”

Damien’s face falls at the response, as if he’d been hoping for a more definitive answer. He does not voice whatever disappointment he is experiencing and instead falls into step alongside Mark to walk the few blocks to Joan’s apartment. Mark occasionally catches Varinia’s eye as she walks at his other side in her determination to put as much distance between herself and Damien as possible. She does not say anything, but the irritation in her glare reminds him that he could be making his biggest mistake since answering the first phone call from Damien.

“Here we are,” he says upon unlocking the door. “Home sweet home.”

Damien takes in the scenery of the apartment. “So this is where Dr. B. lives, huh?”

Mark stops in mid-motion of sliding off his shoes. He has been so busy thinking about his own problems that he hasn’t even considered how inappropriate it is to bring Damien into the home of the therapist that he has manipulated and betrayed. But this isn’t about Joan, Mark reminds himself, and with any luck she will never know that Damien was here.

“I guess it goes without saying that you shouldn’t tell her about this at your next session,” says Mark.

“I’ve gone this long without saying anything, haven’t I?” Damien replies. “Trust me, she doesn’t suspect a thing.”

Mark is unsure whether Damien is capable of lying while in his current state of relative submissiveness, but despite his history of falsehoods he is inclined to believe him. It’s a reflex, perhaps, a holdover from when he had no choice but to nod along with everything that Damien told him. He hasn’t expected to be thrown back into those summer months while the two of them stand here in the middle of Joan’s apartment, and yet here he is, focused on the shape of Damien’s mouth as if he has learned nothing from the month that he has spent with a supposedly clear head.

“Do you, uh… Do you want anything to drink?” he asks, shaking himself out of whatever has overcome him.

“No, I’m good.”

“Right. I’m going to get myself something, so…” Mark trails off, about to say “make yourself at home” until he realizes that the suggestion is too forward for him to make under the current circumstances.

He goes into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. “Bet you wish you hadn’t drunk all your scotch, huh?” Varinia says to him as he grabs a beer.

“I’m surprised that’s all you have to say right now,” Mark replies, carefully stepping around their continued difference in opinion about Damien.

“Well, it’s not like you listen to me anymore. Might as well see where this trainwreck leads.”

“Wow, thanks for the moral support.”

He pops the lid off the bottle of beer and drinks. True to Varinia’s observation, he _does_ indeed wish that he’d been slower in making his way through the scotch that he had bought last week—although in his defense, it was a small bottle. When he hasn’t yet found where Joan has hidden her good alcohol to prevent him from stealing it, he should have known to pace himself better. It is therefore only with a swallow of seasonally-appropriate pumpkin beer that he mentally prepares for whatever direction the rest of this day is headed.

In the living room, he finds Damien sitting on the couch, perched in a vaguely uncomfortable position on its edge as he checks his phone. At Mark’s approach, Mena scrambles toward the couch from where she has been poking around the room in a display of Damien’s curiosity. She leaps up onto his lap and crawls into the front pocket of his hoodie, although her head remains sticking out to watch Mark and Varinia with wary eyes.

“So.” Mark clears his throat, mentally questioning for the thousandth time what he is trying to accomplish by having Damien here. “We can find something to watch on TV if you want, or I can put on some music. You know, so we aren’t sitting here in silence.”

Damien leans back to sit more comfortably on the couch, as if Mark’s company has set him more at ease. “Never expected you to be bad at this,” he says. “Whatever happened to how easy things were between us over the summer?”

“Hey, there’s not exactly a guidebook for how to hang out with a guy like you. I don’t think there are a ton of other people in the world with the same kind of relationship that we have. Especially when literal mind control is involved.”

“We really are something special, huh?” Damien says with a trace of his old smirk upon his lips.

“Yeah, that’s an extremely mild way of putting it.”

As much as Mark despises the look on Damien’s face for reminding him of the manipulative hold that he once held over him, he also cannot take his eyes away from him. The pull of his attraction feels different from what had led him to kiss Damien all those weeks ago. It is now tinged with the edge of hatred at the reminder of all of the ways that Damien has screwed him over, and those sharp angles only make his emotions burn more strongly as he stares at the fading smirk upon Damien’s lips.

“What the hell do you even want from me, anyway?” Damien asks. “I can feel you in my head, but I can’t tell what…” He trails off with a quiet growl of frustration. “Fuck, either use my ability all the way or don’t use it at all. You can’t half-ass something like this.”

Mark takes a long drink and makes a conscious effort to release his unintentional hold over Damien. The distance of communicating with him through phone calls and texts has made their interactions deceptively simpler, creating the illusion that they are two normal guys who have never held any control over each other. He could easily forget how Damien made his feelings of attraction and doubt so closely intertwined, but now that they are face-to-face, all of those complicated emotions come rushing back. He is unsure what he wants to do more: give into the tension and kiss Damien, or order him to leave and pretend none of this ever happened.

He pushes at the edges of Damien’s mind, testing to find any resistance. He does not feel the pushback that he has received from some of his other commands, and so Mark concludes that Damien is no longer under his direct influence. For the first time since he took control of Damien’s ability, their desires might even be aligned, which gives him the confidence to throw caution to the wind and pursue whatever this is to its conclusion.

“Fuck it,” he mutters.

He closes the distance between him and Damien on the couch, and their mouths slide together easily as if no time at all has passed since their last kiss. Mark isn’t quite sure whose tongue pushes into whose mouth first as the kiss becomes desperate and needier, but soon Damien’s hands are tangled in his hair and Mark’s hand is resting on his thigh. Damien smells and tastes like cigarette smoke, but Mark cannot get enough of him as the line between their desires further blurs together.

“Ugh, what have you been drinking?” Damien asks when they finally break apart.

“Uh, pumpkin beer?” replies Mark. “Since it’s almost Halloween I figured it would be seasonally appropriate.”

“It’s disgusting.”

“Yeah, well, so is your cigarette habit, but you don’t hear me complaining about it.”

Damien’s scowl of irritation is almost enough to break whatever spell has come over them, but then Mark becomes aware of how his hand remains on Damien’s thigh in a gesture that feels so natural in a way that should worry him. Their eyes meet, and for the rising swell of a moment Mark knows nothing but the impossibly irresistible man in front of him. 

“Are you sure you want this?” he asks.

“You don’t feel me trying to resist, do you?” Damien replies.

“That’s not an answer. I just want to make sure I’m not accidentally taking advantage of you or anything.”

“Well, aren’t you a gentleman,” grumbles Damien.

Mena crawls out from the front pocket of his sweatshirt to expose her entire form. She nuzzles her head against Mark’s hand in a motion clear in its intentions, and so he runs his fingers through her fur in a motion that he has not performed since overtaking Damien's ability. He waits for Varinia to come closer to the couch so that Damien can reciprocate the gesture that has gone unshared between them for too long, but she remains stubbornly in place in her refusal to participate in whatever Mark and Damien have fallen into.

He soon captures Damien in another kiss to distract himself from Varinia’s disapproval. Damien yields to his advances as he pushes him back to lie on the couch and balances his weight on top of him. When Damien's hands move up to grab his ass, he takes the hint to kiss him harder, drawing out a hungry moan from him as he sucks a bruise into the pale skin of his neck. Mark’s hold over his ability slips out of the careful control that he has maintained, and he burns with the desire to slide his hand into Damien’s jeans until he remembers that he has to be careful when it is impossible for him to know what Damien truly wants.

The door to the apartment then opens, startling him with the heart-stopping panic that precedes the slow-motion descent into disaster. He only has a few seconds to figure out what to do next, since he doesn't have the barrier of Joan turning a key in the lock to buy him some more time. All he has is the suffocating reality that he has no time to hide Damien from her, and he has now been caught red-handed in the impulsive decision that he has made.

“Shit,” Mark mutters. He scrambles into a seated position as Damien looks at him with a nonplussed expression. “Come on, get up.”

“I thought she wouldn’t be home until later,” Damien says, his voice tamped down to a hissed whisper. “She usually sees that empath kid on Sundays.”

“Well, clearly she didn’t have much to do at the office after that,” Mark hisses back. He curses himself for not paying better attention to the day of the week and forgetting that Joan doesn’t always work full days on Sundays.

“Hello, Rin,” comes Joan’s voice from the door. Mark feels a rush of gratitude that even though his daemon is currently at odds with him, she has not hesitated in distracting Joan long enough for him and Damien to fully disengage from their compromising position. “I suppose this means that Mark has to be around here somewhere.”

Mark swallows hard, knowing that he is about to enter a lion’s den. “Hey, Joanie,” he greets her. For one terrible moment he considers forcing her to ignore Damien’s presence, but the thought does not have a chance to materialize beyond how awful it would be for him to do so.

“I assume you went out earlier today, since the door was unlocked,” says Joan. “It’s such a beautiful day, so I’m glad you were able to get out and enjoy some—”

She breaks off when she enters the living room and sees that Mark is not alone. The surprise on her face immediately gives way to anger, and Phoebus ruffles his feathers in restless agitation.

“Hey, Dr. B.,” Damien says, sounding far too casual for the current circumstances.

“Damien.” Joan’s voice is cold enough to freeze over an entire river. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Listen, I can explain—” Mark begins.

“No, I’ll have my turn with you later,” she interrupts him. She crosses her arms in front of her chest and glares at Damien. “Damien, I thought I made it _abundantly_ clear that you were not to go near Mark or any of my patients. And yet somehow you’ve still managed to worm your way into my home—”

“Mark was the one who invited me here,” Damien replies, and Mark doesn’t know if he is speaking more out of honesty or spite.

“No, I—” 

Mark’s retort immediately dies away at his inability to deny his involvement in what has transpired here. Joan rounds on him, and the icy gaze from both her and Phoebus is enough to make him shrink back against the couch’s cushions. She has been angry with him many times before, running the range from trivial sibling squabbles to more serious differences in perspective, but now he has a feeling that the two of them are standing on the brink of an entirely new dimension of arguments.

“Is that true?” she asks him.

“It’s…” He turns to Varinia in the desperate hope that she will help him get out of this mess. She gives him a look that clearly says _This is all up to you, buddy._ “It’s complicated?” he offers feebly.

“Then explain it to me,” Joan demands. “Make me understand what exactly is going through that incredibly thick skull of yours to make you think that _this_ would be a good idea.”

Mark feels his mind reaching out to hers, poised to latch on to it so that he can twist her desire for answers into something that suits him better. He reins in Damien's ability before he loses control completely, because no matter how desperate the situation is he can never justify manipulating his sister for his own benefit.

“We ran into each other when I was out taking some photos,” he begins, “and I just thought—”

“Clearly you _weren't_ thinking,” Joan cuts him off. “You _know_ that Damien is nothing but bad news. Unless you’ve been lying to me about how those three months with him went—”

“I’m sitting right here, you know,” Damien grumbles.

Joan turns her head to acknowledge him. “I think you need to leave, Damien,” she says.

He hesitates in the face of her command. “I—” He lets out a growl of frustration, rising from the couch before sitting down again. “Mark wants me to stay,” he declares.

“No, I don't, you little shit—” Mark begins in an automatic denial, but then he realizes that he is indeed projecting that subconscious desire. He finds the buried thread of his will that has stretched into Damien's mind and tugs away his grip, hoping that it is not too late to salvage the situation.

The damage has already been done, however. Joan is not a tall woman, but the way that she draws herself up to her full height while Phoebus spreads his wings to show his complete wingspan does the job to create an intimidating presence. When she opens her mouth to speak, she does not yell, but instead maintains her dangerously cold tone.

“Get the _fuck_ out of my apartment, Damien.”

Damien obediently rises to his feet with none of his previous resistance. Mark can barely see Mena where she has hidden herself so deeply inside his sweatshirt, and Damien does not offer him any words or even a look of apology as he walks out of the apartment with his head down.

After the door has closed behind him, the silence that falls across the living room weighs heavily with the anticipation of what Joan is going to say now that she and Mark are alone. The intensity in her expression has not faded, and Mark hates how her resemblance to their father has become even more pronounced with the unmistakable mixture of anger and disappointment that radiates from her.

“What’s going on between you and him?” she asks with no further preamble.

“Nothing,” Mark lies. “It’s like what I said before. We ran into each other when I was out a little while ago, and then we ended up coming back here. Nothing happened.”

Varinia growls in irritation, but thankfully she does not say anything to contradict his half-lie. Joan, meanwhile, continues to regard him with a renewed sense of suspicion that makes his heart sink further.

“That still doesn’t explain why you thought it would be a good idea for you to bring him here,” she says. “I suppose I’m not surprised that _you_ would do something this stupid, but Varinia, I would have expected better from you. You’ve always been the closest thing Mark has to common sense.”

“Hey—” Mark begins in his offense, but Varinia is already speaking over him.

“It’s not like he would have listened to me,” she says. “I’ve been telling him for _weeks_ that nothing good will come out of him being in contact with Damien again, but he refuses to have _any_ sense about—"

She breaks off when she realizes what she has accidentally revealed. Her words hang in the air as Joan processes them, and Phoebus clicks his beak angrily as a precursor to his human's response.

“You’ve been in _contact_ with him?” Joan asks. “Before today?”

“A little bit, yeah,” Mark admits. “He just—I wanted to make sure he was okay, you know? Since it’s kind of my fault that his ability caved in on itself like that.”

“You shouldn’t have any delusions of responsibility for him,” says Joan, repeating what Varinia had told him after the initial phone call almost three weeks ago. “He is _my_ patient, and I’ve been doing everything I can to help him lead a normal life after what happened. It shouldn’t be up to you, the person who he kidnapped and manipulated, to check on his well-being.”

“Then why did I have to find out from him that he was still having appointments with you?" Mark retorts. “I thought we weren’t going to keep secrets from each other anymore.”

Joan lets out a derisive scoff of a laugh. “Oh, that’s rich, considering how you’ve been keeping your own Damien-shaped secret from me this whole time—”

“Because you wouldn't understand!” Mark exclaims. He rises to his feet, his patience snapping with Joan’s accusations. “All you ever care about is protecting me, but I’m not a little kid anymore! And ever since I’ve been back, you’ve been looking at me like I’m about to fall apart at any second. At least _he_ doesn’t treat me like I’m made of fucking glass or something!”

“I’m just worried about you—”

“Yeah, I understand that, but that doesn’t mean you have to treat me like a—”

“—and you’re not making it any easier for me by staying in contact with someone like Damien,” Joan cuts across him. “I don’t know _what_ you were thinking. Or if you were even thinking anything at all.”

“Oh, great, here we go.” Mark rolls his eyes. “What’s it going to be this time? ‘You never think anything through, Mark. You’ve made a huge mistake, Mark. You’re such a disaster, Mark.’” He imitates Joan with each response, repeating the phrases that he has heard from her during some of their worst fights over the years.

“I don't think you’re a disaster. You _know_ I would never think that about you. But I still don’t understand what you’re trying to achieve by bringing him back into your life.” She huffs out an irritated breath. “I want you to be honest with me,” she then says. “What is it that you feel for him?”

“I—” Mark opens his mouth and then closes it again, at a loss as to what to say. “I don’t know. But… I can’t say that it’s _nothing_.”

Joan’s brow furrows deeper in an expression that shows him no sympathy or pity. Mark wishes that she could give him what he calls the Therapist Look: gentle, attentive, and lacking in judgment as she helps him sort through the mess of his emotions. But she cannot look upon him like he is her patient, and in this moment she does not even see him as her brother for whom she can and will do anything. Instead it’s as if he is a stranger to her, the familiar shape of him destroyed by the choices that he has made. 

“Are you sleeping with him?” she asks.

“No,” says Mark, relieved that he can finally answer her with the full truth. “Not even when he could still use his ability. We just…”

“You almost walked in on them making out just now,” Varinia says bluntly. “And they also kissed a whole bunch before Damien’s ability rebounded.”

“Jeez, thanks for selling me out, Rin,” he mutters to her. Whatever good will had encouraged her to prevent Joan from catching him and Damien in the act has clearly worn off. The sting of her betrayal aches with the divide between their desires that had once been whole before Damien entered the picture.

Joan purses her lips in an expression that Mark cannot determine is more concerned or disgusted. “I see,” she replies.

“Really? That’s all you have to say?” He can always tell when she is holding something back, and right now she might as well be a human dam that is preventing all of her angry words from spilling forth. “If you’re not going to be sympathetic, the least you can do is scream at me instead of whatever the hell ‘I see’ is supposed to mean.”

“All right,” Joan says as Phoebus ruffles his feathers again. “You really want to get into this? There are a lot of things I could say to you as a therapist about whatever twisted relationship you and Damien seem to have. But since I’m not your therapist, I’m going to tell you as your sister that you’re an absolute goddamn _idiot_ for letting him make out with you.”

“ _Letting_ him?” Mark scoffs in disbelief. “This isn’t an issue of control. I did it because _I_ wanted to. Maybe not for the best reasons, but—”

“He’s treated both of us terribly!” Joan interrupts him. “He forced me to devote time and resources to him for well over a year with no intention of using our time together as a way to improve himself, convinced me to tell him information that I would have _never_ shared with a patient otherwise, and compromised an extremely sensitive rescue mission for his own selfish desires. Not to mention everything he did to you over the summer—”

“Do you think I don’t know about what he’s done?” Mark retorts. “It’s not like I look at him and think ‘Oh, yes, this is a totally normal dude.’ And yeah, he’s done a lot of really awful shit that I’m not ready to forgive him for, but at least he kept me safe from the AM while we were on the run. That’s more than _you_ ever did for me!”

Joan flinches as if his words have physically struck her. In true sibling fashion, Mark knows exactly which buttons to press and knives to twist to get a reaction out of her, and in this moment he does not care that he has gone too far in speaking directly to her sense of personal failure. He instead meets the hurt and furious expression on her face with defiance, too angry to take back what he has said.

“How _dare_ you.” Her voice trembles with rage. “I have given up _so_ much of the past few years for your sake, to get you back from the AM and try to fix what I was too blind to see while I was working for them. So don’t you _dare_ say that he's done more for you than I have. Because with the way you're talking, it sounds like you care more about him than you do about me—”

“Joan—” Phoebus warns her, but she ignores his interjection.

“—and if you’re choosing him over me, your _family_ , then you need to get the hell out of here this _instant_.”

It is now Mark’s turn to be sent reeling from the verbal gut punch of Joan’s harsh statement. He feels like he is nineteen again, standing in front of his parents as they order him out of the house for being something that they hate and fear more than anything else. He knows that Joan has not consciously intended to invoke that memory, but her words sting with the pain of rejection regardless.

“I’m not ‘choosing’ anyone,” he says. “But if you want me to leave? Fine. I’ll leave.”

He walks away from her in a decisive motion, driven away not solely by her words but also out of a certain degree of self-preservation. If he stays, he is sure that his and Joan’s argument will only escalate into more statements that they will regret after the dust settles. He therefore slides on a pair of shoes and makes sure to grab his wallet and keys before turning back to look at the scene that he has left behind him.

“Mark, I’m—” Joan begins.

“No, I don’t want to hear it,” he interrupts her. “I just… I need some air.”

He storms out with Varinia following close behind him, and not even the anger and pain upon Joan's face is enough to make him change his mind as he slams the door in his wake.


	10. Chapter 10

Mark should have gone for a walk to cool down after his dramatic departure, taking half an hour or so to clear his head before returning to Joan’s apartment. The rational and reasonable portion of his mind has checked out a long time ago, however, and so his feet carry him not on an aimless route to settle his mind, but rather to the nearest bar.

Each glass of whiskey that he orders slides easily down his throat as he tries to drown out the memories of Damien’s kisses and Joan’s angry words. It’s not the best quality of alcohol that he could be consuming right now, but he’s not going to splurge on the good stuff when he doesn’t plan on taking his time to savor it. He is drinking for the sake of distraction, not taste, and as long as it gets him drunk he will keep knocking it back.

“Aren’t you going to check your phone every once in a while?” Varinia asks him.

“Nope.”

His phone has indeed been periodically vibrating with incoming calls and texts, and as much as he wants to see whether any of them are from Damien, it's far more likely that Joan is the one contacting him, demanding to know why he has been gone for longer than what she has deemed acceptable. It probably says a lot that his current anger at her outweighs whatever he feels for Damien, but the burn of whiskey in his throat tells him that he is not in a good mental place to unpack all of that right now.

“Shouldn’t you slow down?” says Varinia. She looks at Mark’s glass with a dubious expression.

“Nope,” he says again.

She huffs out an exasperated breath. “Are we going back to Joan’s apartment tonight?”

“Absolutely not.” He has no idea where else to go, but this bar seems as good of a place as any to stay for the foreseeable future. At least here the strong alcohol isn’t hidden from him. “And if you’re going to suggest that I go back—”

“No,” Varinia says. “I _do_ agree with her that you’re being a goddamn idiot, but if a little bit of distance from her is what makes you figure that out for yourself, then I’m all for it.”

Mark downs the rest of his drink. Varinia continues to regard him with skepticism, and he feels like he is a million miles away from her even though she is sitting right at his feet. He has grown accustomed to this type of distance when it comes to Joan, as much as he hates having a gaping chasm between him and his sister who was once his best friend in the world, but feeling a similar divide between him and Varinia is an entirely different matter. The connection between a human and their daemon is the deepest and most sacred bond that exists, and yet now the reality of their strained relationship stares him straight in the face. The worst part is that he has no idea how long this rift has been growing: whether it is a direct result of everything that has happened with Damien or if it existed before then, increasing too gradually for either of them to notice until it now threatens to reach a breaking point.

He does not fully realize how much he has had to drink until he eventually stands up to use the bathroom and discovers that he cannot quite walk in a straight line. His final sliver of good judgment that has not been drowned out by the alcohol tells him that he should call it quits before he ends up passed out in an alley somewhere. He therefore pays his tab upon his return to his barstool, barely paying attention to how much he is spending as he hands over his debit card. He is fortunate that both Joan and Sam have loaned him money to keep his bank account afloat until he settles into the adult life that he should have started years ago, but he doubts that either of them expected that money to go toward getting smashed at a bar by himself.

Outside the bar, the sky has fully darkened with the quick onset of autumn evenings. Mark pulls the sleeves of his sweater over his hands to keep them warm as he walks with deliberate steps to avoid appearing visibly drunk. He lets his feet carry him without much thought as to where he is going, moving further and further out of Joan’s neighborhood until the streets look unfamiliar. Despite his attempts to convince himself that his route is pure aimlessness, in the back of his mind he maintains a vague sense of a possible destination.

“Where are we going?” Varinia asks him as they cut through the well-lit pathways of a park. 

Her words slur together in a reflection of the intoxication shared between them. The alcohol that currently clouds Mark’s judgment has made him forget that he still isn’t quite in shape enough to walk long distances without getting tired, and so he stops at a bench to rest his legs before continuing on his way,

“Don’t tell me you’re going to see _him_ ,” Varinia continues.

Mark does not have to ask who “him” refers to. “I’m not—” he begins, but the protest is useless from the moment that he opens his mouth. “I don’t even know where he lives.”

Varinia shakes her head and fixes him with a challenging look. “Don’t lie to me, Mark. I _know_ you’ve been poking around in Chloe’s thoughts to try to figure out where his apartment is whenever we hang out with her. You at least have a direction in mind.”

“Fine, so what if I want to see him?” Mark replies, automatically defensive. “Yeah, I know he’s an asshole who got us into this mess in the first place. But at least he doesn’t expect anything from me. I don’t have to pretend that everything’s okay when I talk to him because he _knows_ what these past few months have been like for me.”

Varinia’s expression does not soften into sympathy. “Do you even realize what he’s doing to you?” she demands. “I know what’s going on in your head, how you’re afraid that you’ve disappointed Joan by not being the brother that she remembers and how you think that you’re not good enough for Sam because she already has enough to deal with in her life without adding you and your problems to it. But instead of confronting all of these things head-on, you’ve been hiding from them by talking to Damien, even though all it’s ever done is drive you further away from the other people you care about—”

“That’s not true—”

“It is!” Varinia’s harsh response breaks through the quiet air of the park. “What about Joanie? What about _me_?”

The look of simultaneous pain and fury upon her face deepens the ache that is growing inside Mark’s chest, but he has built up too much argumentative momentum to stop and examine his emotions. When he finds his voice, he pushes forward at full steam to match his daemon’s anger.

“If you’re going to give me the same bullshit that she did about how I’m choosing him over you—” he starts in retort.

“Because you are! I told you from the moment I noticed you were developing some kind of interest in him that you needed to be careful. And guess what? That was the exact moment when you stopped listening to me about anything involving him. So from where I’m standing, you think whatever fucked up relationship you have with him is more important than what your actual soul is telling you!”

Her words pierce straight through Mark’s heart. “You _know_ that’s not true,” he says. “You’ve _always_ been the one to have my back. So if you’re going to let something as stupid as you not liking Damien drive us apart, then maybe you need to stop trying to control me and let me live my goddamn life!”

Varinia growls, baring her teeth in her rage. “ _I’m_ not the one who’s trying to control you. _You_ need to accept that Damien is still in your head, and you should have cut him out of your life the minute we got home. Because what you feel for him _isn’t real_. It’s only left over from when he manipulated you so hard into liking him that you started to think it was true!”

Mark recalls the touch of Damien’s lips and the warmth of his body beneath him on Joan’s couch a couple of hours ago. He cannot construe the memory as anything but real, because he had been in control of the situation, hadn’t he? He has had no reason to doubt his emotions for over a month now, but Varinia’s claims have now tilted his world sideways in uncertainty.

“Shut up!” he yells. “I’m so _sick_ of people thinking they can tell me what’s real and what’s not. ‘You’ll go insane if you don’t use your ability. Your sister doesn’t actually care about you. You invented the woman who kept you company while you were trapped in the past. None of your feelings are real.’” The repetitions of the manipulative statements come flying out of his mouth, reminding him of how much he has been lied to during the past five years. “God, you’re just as bad as the rest of them.”

“Fuck you, Mark,” Varinia snarls. The statement is pure aggression, carrying none of the good humor with which they often tease or lightly rib each other. “This isn’t the same thing at all, and you know it. You’re just too stubborn and self-destructive to accept that you’ve done nothing but make one bad decision after another since we’ve been back home. You’re pathetic.”

“I really fucking hate you, you know that?” Mark spits back before he can stop himself.

Varinia meets his glare unflinchingly despite his hurtful words, and then she turns and walks away from the bench. At first Mark thinks that she is merely storming off a couple of yards away in anger and will return to his side once they have both calmed down, but then he feels a pull at their connection as she approaches the limit of the physical distance that can exist between them. He gasps in pain and clutches his chest at the sensation that someone has cracked open his ribs to prod at the most vulnerable parts of his heart. He tries to stand up to move toward her, but his legs feel like jelly when he puts weight on them.

“Stop it, Rin!” he calls out to her. He suppresses his cry of agony into a quieter hiss of pain. “You’re hurting us!”

“You’ve been hurting us for a long time before this,” she retorts.

Her reply comes out from between gritted teeth, and she moves with labored yet determined steps as she pushes against the invisible boundary of their bond. Mark feels like he is back in the Tier 5 basement, forced to be apart from her for the sake of the AM’s experiments. It is in this moment, doubled over and gasping for breath, that he fully realizes that there is something deeply broken between him and his daemon that is entirely his fault due to the choices that he has made.

“Please,” he begs. “Please come back. I’m sorry, I—” A sob rises in his chest, but he refuses to let it out. “Please, Varinia, stop hurting us.”

He’s not sure whether it’s his desperate pleas or the unbearable pull at their bond that makes her turn around, but at her approach he lets out an exhale of relief as his pain recedes into a dull, uncomfortable ache. He tries to stand up again and has more success this time, although he still staggers from the head-spinning effects of his drunkenness. Now that his surging emotions are receding, he realizes how lucky he is that the park is deserted enough that no one seems to have noticed what has happened here. A drunk man having a public altercation with his daemon is the perfect picture of instability, and any intervention from a random passerby would have only made the situation worse.

“I promise I won’t go see Damien,” he tells Varinia, knowing that he has to say _something_ else to her. “But I don’t want to go back to Joanie either.”

“We’ll go to Sam’s place.” Her voice is flat and emotionless, as if she is only replying to him out of sheer necessity. “Although we’ll be lucky if she agrees to put up with us.”

“Okay,” he agrees.

Sam’s apartment is much too far away for him to walk to, and so he takes out his phone to find the quickest public transportation route to get there. Several text and missed call notifications greet him when he turns on the screen, but he ignores them, knowing that he is in no condition to talk to either of the people attempting to contact him right now. He does manage to text Sam to ensure that she is home and doesn’t mind him coming over, and he is too tired and aching to correct the typos in his message before sending it.

 _Of course, you know you can always come over whenever_ , comes her immediate reply, which is soon followed by the inquiry of _Are you ok?_

The truth is far too much for him to convey over text, and so he settles for a series of three thumbs-up emojis in a blatant lie. The extra two emojis may have been overkill, he realizes after he has sent the message. He watches the dots that indicate that Sam is typing a response, seeing them start and stop as if she is struggling with how to respond. To his relief, her eventual reply is merely _Let me know when you’re here so I can let you in_.

Mark slides his phone back into his pocket and starts walking toward the nearest bus stop. He and Varinia exchange no words between them, even when they are sitting next to each other on the bus when it arrives. She stares out the window while determinedly facing away from him, and when he reaches out a tentative hand toward her, she jerks away from the touch.

“Rin—” he begins.

“ _No_ , Mark,” she replies harshly.

She does not say anything to him for the rest of the bus ride, nor during the short walk from the bus stop after they have arrived at Sam’s neighborhood. Sam lives on the second floor of a multi-apartment house, accessible through a side door with an interior staircase that leads to the upstairs apartments. The side door is usually locked, and so as Mark stumbles his way around the outside of the house he texts Sam with the simple statement of _Here_. Upon seeing that he has another new text from Damien, he turns off his phone to fully cut himself off from anyone trying to contact him. While he waits for Sam to come downstairs, he leans against the house to maintain his balance, closing his eyes in an attempt to alleviate the dizziness from his combined drunkenness and physical exhaustion.

The door soon opens, startling him into attention. “Sam!” he exclaims when she appears. He grips the door frame with one hand to steady himself in his wavering stance.

“Hey, come on i—” She stops upon noticing the sight in front of her. “Oh my God. Are you drunk?”

“No,” he lies. At her raised eyebrows of skepticism, he admits sheepishly, “Maybe a little.”

“Jesus,” Sam mutters. “Okay, let’s get you upstairs. Here—” She offers her arm to him for support. “Peregrine, you’ll help Varinia if she needs it, right?”

Peregrine nods. “Come on, Rin,” he says softly as he nuzzles against her in encouragement. Mark can’t remember when Peregrine started calling her by the shorter and more intimate name. He should have noticed the change before now, especially with how close the two daemons have become during the past few weeks.

Sam helps him ascend the stairs, and when they enter her apartment he makes a path straight for the couch in the living room. Varinia lies down on the floor on the opposite side of the room, still refusing to look at him in a silent display of the tension between them that he hopes that Sam does not notice.

“What happened?” Sam asks as she joins him on the couch.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re drunk on a Sunday night. Something _must_ have happened.” Her hands clasp together nervously in her lap. “I mean, I know it’s Halloween weekend and things can sometimes get crazy, but… No offense, but your social circle is about as big as mine right now, and I know for a fact that none of our friends are having wild Halloween parties tonight.”

“Nothing happened,” Mark insists. “I just… I got a little carried away, that’s all.”

Sam’s frown returns in an obvious expression of her doubt. “Does Joan know that you’re…” She gestures toward him in a wordless indication of his current state.

A fresh wave of anger rushes through him at the memory of Joan’s self-righteous fury. “She’s not my keeper,” he says. “I’m a grown-ass adult. I’m allowed to get drunk without her permission.”

“Right. Of course.” Sam’s worry does not fade, but Mark has known her long enough to trust that she will not press an issue that he does not want to discuss. “Um, have you had any dinner yet? I was planning on heating up some leftovers for me, but I can order something for both of us if you want.”

“Pizza would be fantastic,” he says, deciding to go with something simple. He has long since stopped protesting Sam’s constant offers to pay for his food whenever they share a meal together, not when she has more money than she knows what to do with and refuses to take no for an answer.

“Okay, yeah, that’s easy.” She takes out her phone to place an online order. “What toppings do you like, again? Mushrooms, green peppers, black olives…”

“I’ll eat literally anything you put in front of me,” Mark replies. “But yeah, that sounds good.”

Sam places the order, and then they settle into the easy silence that often falls between them during their time together. With most people a lull in the conversation is awkward, but with Sam it is comforting, as if she doesn’t expect anything more from him than his company. He doesn’t even mind when she pulls out her laptop to resume the work she was doing before his arrival, and in turn she lets him use her TV to stream music from his Spotify account. He catches her softly singing along to the Paolo Nutini song that comes up on the current playlist as she goes into the kitchen to get him a glass of water. His heart warms at the sound of her voice as he remembers all of the times in 1810 when hearing her sing to him allowed him a brief escape from his reality of being trapped in the past.

After the pizza has arrived and they have both eaten their fill, Sam’s phone eventually rings. She frowns at the screen when she checks to see who is calling.

“Sorry, I should take this,” she says.

“Go ahead. I don’t mind,” Mark assures her from where he has now sprawled lazily across most of the couch.

Sam stands up from where she has moved to sit on the floor next to the coffee table. “Hey, what’s up?” she says into her phone, pacing a path around the living room in what is likely a nervous habit. “Yeah, he—he’s been here for the past hour or so.”

She casts a glance back at Mark at these words. He now has a good idea of who is on the other end of the phone, and he is honestly surprised that Joan has not called sooner. He is sure that Sam is first on her list for people to call to inquire about his whereabouts after being unable to contact him for a few hours.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Sam says, biting her lip in an expression of her uneasiness about the lie. “No, I—I think it would be better if he stays here for the night… No, it’s fine. I don’t mind. Really.” She glances surreptitiously in Mark’s direction again. “Okay. Yeah, no problem. I’ll let you know if… Yeah. Sounds good. Okay, bye.”

She ends the call. Peregrine moves questioningly toward her, and she lays a hand on his back before sitting down on the portion of the couch where Mark has now made room for her.

“So, um, that was Joan calling,” she says, broaching the topic with the caution of stepping around a landmine.

“Yeah, I figured,” Mark replies. “Thanks for not telling her that I’m, you know. Kind of trashed.”

“She wanted to make sure you were okay. She’s worried about you.”

“Yeah, well, that’s all she ever does. Worry about me,” Mark mutters, the irritated words spilling out before he can stop them.

“Did…” Sam moves closer to him on the couch. “Did something happen between you two? She mentioned that you stormed out after getting into an argument with her, so I thought that maybe...”

“Nope, I don’t want to talk about it,” Mark says in swift evasion of the subject. He rises from the couch, still unsteady on his feet. “I’m gonna go get some more water.”

“Mark.” Sam reaches out to take hold of his arm. The touch freezes him in place, and when he meets her eyes he sees the honest concern in their soft blue depths. “Please. You know you can always talk to me.”

He sits down at her gentle encouragement, scrubbing his hands across the length of his face. “I really fucked up, Sam,” he admits, his words muffled behind his hands.

“I’m sure you didn’t,” she soothes him. As he takes his hands away from his face, he sees a twitch of movement as if she was about to touch his arm again before second-guessing herself.

He gives a bitter laugh. “Oh, trust me, I did. I’m surprised Joan didn’t give you the whole goddamn story. She just _loves_ to rub it in how I’m physically incapable of ever making a good decision. Because that’s all my life is. Just one mistake after another.”

“Joan doesn’t—” Sam begins, but Mark is already hurtling forward at full speed, aware that he has now entered the “emotional oversharing” stage of his drunkenness. He’d gone to the bar to try to forget about everything that crowds his mind, but now the coping mechanism has been turned against him as the day’s events swell up inside him until they become too much for him to bear.

“I’ve been talking to Damien,” he bursts out before he makes a conscious choice to say anything.

“Oh,” is all Sam says at first.

Mark gives her as much time as she needs to formulate a more in-depth reaction, even though part of him is internally screaming at her to say something. He would rather see her explicitly angry, filled with the same rage that had caused her to punch Damien, but instead he gets nothing but the twin stares of worry from both her and Peregrine.

“How, um…” she finally continues in response. “How long has this been going on for?”

“Since like a week after he and I came back. He called, and I answered the phone like a fucking _idiot_.” Now that he has made the initial confession to her, all of the other details spill out in a rambling mess. “And—I don’t know, something about hearing his voice just drew me back in, even though he doesn’t have control over me anymore. And then after that we kept talking. Or texting, really. That’s mostly what we’ve been doing. But it was fine, because I wasn’t actually _seeing_ him. Until today, at least.”

He still cannot read anything specific in Sam’s expression as she mentally runs through everything that he has revealed. “Joan found out, didn’t she?” she says. “That would explain a lot.”

“Yeah, well, she almost walked in on me and him making out when she came home from work today. So I’d say that definitely counts as her finding out.”

“Wait. You were _making out_ with him?” Sam’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “I mean, I’d always wondered if something happened between the two of you over the summer, but Joan said she didn’t think Damien would ever want to cross that line, and…” Realization dawns across her face as she realizes the full implications of what he has admitted. “Oh my God. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid. The two of you have liked each other this entire time, haven’t you? _That’s_ why you told me that we should just stay friends. It wasn’t because you needed some time for yourself. It was because of _him_.”

“Sam, I—” Any response that Mark gives will likely be useless, but he pushes forward regardless. “Look, I don’t need this right now, okay? I’ve already gotten enough judgment today. I don’t need yet another person telling me about how much I’m ruining everything by having a fucked up relationship with him.”

“I don’t think you’re ruining anything,” says Sam. “Of _course_ I don’t. But—Mark, I saw the way he treated you over the summer. There was one time right before you came home when I went back—not on purpose, it was one of those trips that just kind of happened—and I saw the two of you in a motel room together. He was saying all these things about how I wasn’t real and how Joan doesn’t care about you, and the whole time you were lying there staring at the wall like you’d rather be anywhere else in the world. I just don’t understand how you can go from _that_ to voluntarily bringing him home with you and kissing him.”

“It’s—” He wants to say “complicated,” but it is becoming increasingly clearer to him that he has been using the word as a crutch to avoid confronting the reality of everything Damien has done to hurt him. “It’s not like that,” he finishes weakly.

“Then what _is_ it like?” Sam demands. “I can accept the fact that maybe you and I will never be anything more than friends. I’ve made my peace with that since you’ve been back. But if the only reason we can’t be together is because you have feelings for someone whose behavior I can best describe as ‘emotionally manipulative’—”

Something inside of Mark breaks with her response. He feels his face crumpling, and tears sting in his eyes as his lips tremble like he’s an exaggerated picture of distress come to life. The weight of every angry and accusatory word he has heard in the past few hours presses upon him from all sides until they are smothering him. He opens his mouth to speak, but the only sound that comes out is the horrible choked sound of a sob. He curls in on himself, pressing his forehead against his knees that he has pulled in tightly against his body as he cries with the ragged breaths of his sobs.

“Oh my God,” Sam says. “Oh my God, Mark, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—” She breaks off, and for a moment their shaky breathing aligns. “Now I’ve just made everything worse, because of _course_ that’s what I always do, and—”

“Sam,” Peregrine murmurs to her. “Come on, try to stay here.”

Mark does not need to lift his head to know that she has started to flicker. He can feel the vibration inside him as his ability reaches out toward hers, and wouldn’t _that_ be the cherry on top of the shit sundae of today’s events: vanishing into the past with Sam—or even worse, _without_ her—and facing the terror of getting trapped again. He hears her breaths steadying into a less panicked rhythm of inhales and exhales in a breathing exercise that he’s sure that she learned from Joan while in therapy with her. He tries to mimic her, bringing deep breaths of oxygen into his lungs, but his chest is heaving too hard with his sobs. The only thing he can take comfort in is how he can no longer easily sense her ability, which reduces his fear that he will disappear outside of either of their control.

“Is it okay if I hug you?” she asks after she has settled into a solid, less panicked state.

Mark nods and uncurls his body so that she can put her arms around him. The initial uncertainty of her embrace gives way to the warmth of comfort as she holds him for as long as he needs. His heart soars with the same feeling he used to get whenever she would travel back in time to see him: the feeling that convinced him that maybe he _could_ fall for this extraordinary woman who came to him at his lowest point of loneliness. His relationship with Sam would probably look a lot different if he hadn’t clung so hard to what he thought he could find with Damien, and following that line of thought to its conclusion only brings him more pain.

“I’ve been such an idiot,” he says, his voice heavy with tears. “I should have never answered the phone when he called that first time. I should’ve just cut him out of my life like everyone wanted. And now Rin’s refusing to talk to me, and—”

He stops there, too ashamed to admit that the rift between him and his daemon has led her to deliberately cause them one of the worst pains in the world. He pulls away from Sam’s embrace, and as he wipes his eyes and sniffles loudly he wonders if he looks as pathetic as he feels.

“Sorry for crying on you,” he says. He reaches for the box of tissues on the coffee table and blows his nose a couple of times. “Ugh, I’m such a mess.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she replies. “And I’m sorry too. It was so selfish of me to bring up my own feelings like that, and I especially didn’t mean to upset you.”

“To be fair, I think by this point _anything_ you said would have made me fall apart. ‘S what happens when you get drunk and then talk about your feelings. Someone always ends up crying.”

Sam smiles weakly at his attempt to bring a trace of humor to the situation. “I’m going to get you some more water,” she says. 

She rises from the couch and walks toward the kitchen with his now-empty glass of water. Mark expects Peregrine to follow her, but instead he remains at his side. It’s no substitute for the company of his own daemon, but he is grateful that Peregrine is able to stay here without straining the connection between him and Sam.

“Is she okay?” Mark asks him.

“Sam? Yeah, I think so. We just got a little overwhelmed, that’s all.”

“Good. I mean, not good that you got overwhelmed. But good that you’re okay.” Then, unsure if he wants to know the answer, he says, “What about Rin? I saw you talking to her earlier.”

Peregrine looks up at him with doleful eyes. “She’s hurting. That’s all I can really say.”

The continued ache deep inside Mark’s heart has already told him that much. “Thanks for keeping her company,” he says. “She doesn’t deserve to be alone just because she and I are in a fight.”

“You’re welcome.”

Sam returns to the couch with a full glass of water, which Mark accepts with a quiet word of thanks. Now that Mark is no longer alone on the couch, Peregrine pads across the room to rejoin Varinia. He nuzzles her in a gesture of comfort, speaking to her with soft words that Mark cannot hear. The certainty in his actions proves how much he has grown from being too shy to even approach Varinia during Sam’s early visits to Mark in the past.

“You said it was okay for me to spend the night here, right?” Mark says with the hazy recollection of what Sam said to Joan while on the phone with her.

“Yeah, of course,” she replies. “No offense, but I don’t really think you’re in a state to go anywhere right now.”

Mark murmurs in agreement and then drinks deeply from the glass that she has given him. The water helps soothe the lightheadedness that comes with having a good cry, but his fuzzy drunken mind is here to stay. He blows his nose again, adding another tissue to the pile growing beside him.

“Thanks for putting up with me,” he says. “Sorry for probably putting a huge damper on your evening.”

“Don’t be silly. I wasn’t just going to leave you out in the cold. Besides, it’s not like you interrupted anything more exciting than a night of research rabbit holes and maybe a little bit of TV. _Very_ riveting stuff.”

Mark manages a brief laugh in response. “Hey, sounds like a fun night to me.”

He wonders why she does not ask him what he plans to do after tonight, especially regarding Damien. Although he does not believe that she has let go of her anger so easily, he is relieved that she has left aside the fraught topic for now. Avoiding the problem is definitely not the best long-term solution, but he is in no condition to make any decisions about Damien right now.

“Do you mind if we put on a TV show or movie or something?” he asks. “I kind of need to turn my brain off for a while until I fall asleep.”

“Yeah, of course,” Sam replies. “Do you have anything in mind? I’m not sure how much our tastes in comfort movies line up.”

After some deliberation, they put on _The Princess Bride_ , one of Mark’s old favorites that he has not had a chance to rewatch since his return to the real world and which Sam has not seen in years. Somewhere in between quoting all the best lines of dialogue and listening to Sam tell him about some of the research she’s been doing, his drowsiness begins to set in. As much as he tries to stay awake until the end of the movie, he finds himself drifting in and out of light slumber during the “storming the castle” sequence, falling asleep for a couple minutes at a time until his eyes flutter open once more.

“We can turn off the movie if you’re tired,” Sam says when she glances over at him and catches him dozing off.

“Hmm?” Her voice pulls him back to attentiveness. “No, I wanna watch till the end.”

His eyes are already closing again in a betrayal of his words, and this time he remains asleep longer. The next time he is aware of what is happening around him, the TV has been turned off, although not much time must have passed because Sam has not moved from her position on the other end of the couch. The sporadic sounds of her fingers against her laptop’s keyboard while she types are oddly soothing as he lies there trying not to think about how much his head is spinning.

“Oh man, I missed the ending?” he says.

Sam looks up from her computer, startled by his half-mumbled words. “Yeah. I figured I should just let you sleep.”

Mark groans, rubbing his eyes and stretching his legs out as far as he can without kicking her. He reaches for his glass of water on the coffee table and misses his mouth when he lifts his head to take a sip. A few drops dribble down his chin in a display of how he _really_ needs to sleep all of this off.

“The couch pulls out if you want something a little more comfortable,” says Sam. “Well, actually, I’ve never slept on it so I can’t personally vouch for how comfortable it is, but Chloe’s used it a couple of times and she’s never complained.”

“Okay,” Mark agrees.

Although he feels too tired to get up, he’s sure his body will thank him in the morning for sleeping on something that more closely resembles a bed. After helping Sam set everything up, he takes off his sweater to avoid overheating and crawls into bed. Before she leaves his side, she smooths down the topmost blanket in a motion that resembles tucking him in. It says a lot about his current state of mind that the tender gesture almost causes him to burst into tears again.

“You’ll let me know if you need anything else, right?” she says.

Mark nods, although he cannot shake the feeling that he does not deserve this degree of compassion from her after everything that has happened today. Something in his expression must give away how empty and lonely he feels, because Sam reaches for one of his hands and squeezes it tightly in reassurance. When their eyes meet, she looks as surprised as he feels at her initiative, and she pulls her hand back in a self-conscious motion and clears her throat before pressing onward.

“Okay, um, sleep well,” she offers in goodnight.

“You too,” Mark manages to say.

The room falls dark with her departure, and the gentle concern upon her and Peregrine’s faces is the last thing he remembers before his exhaustion pulls him into a deep slumber.


	11. Chapter 11

Mark wakes early the next morning and is immediately disoriented until he remembers the previous night’s events in a jumbled clip show of alcohol and poor decisions. He groans, already feeling how his drunkenness has given way to a hangover, and looks for his phone to check the time. When he finds it within arm’s reach, he unsuccessfully attempts to turn on the screen multiple times before realizing that the phone has remained shut off since last night.

He boots it up and discovers that it’s a quarter to seven in the morning, and after a few seconds all of his notifications begin flowing in. He has seven missed calls, one voicemail, and over a dozen texts from Damien, along with three missed calls from Joan that are each accompanied by a voicemail. Knowing that he cannot ignore their attempts at communication for much longer, he checks his texts starting with the ones from Damien.

 _Pick up your phone Mark_ , the first text reads. It has a timestamp of “5:51 P.M.”—by which point Mark had been well into downing glasses of whiskey at the bar. The periodic messages that follow it become increasingly frustrated and desperate until the final one sent a little after two in the morning, which offers nothing but _please mark, im sorry_.

“Fuck,” Mark mutters. 

He puts down his phone, unable to bring himself to listen to the voicemails that are waiting for him. He reaches out in an instinctive motion to pet Varinia and then remembers that she is not on the bed with him. Even if he is not willing to face either Joan or Damien right now, at the very least he needs to make things right with his daemon regardless of the shame he feels at how they have reached such a drastically low point in their relationship.

“Rin?” he whispers to her. He sits up and sees her lying down next to the pull-out bed, curled up on one of the couch’s discarded cushions as she continues to ignore him. “Come on,” he insists. “The passive-aggressive silent treatment is getting _really_ old. That’s always been Joanie and Phoebus’s thing, not ours. At least not with each other.”

“Who do you think I learned it from?” Varinia replies sullenly, still not looking at him. 

Her ill-tempered response does not give Mark much comfort, but at least she has said something after twelve hours of refusing to speak to him. “Look, I—” He breaks off with a sigh as he embarks on the difficult task of acknowledging that he has wronged part of his own self. “I’m sorry, okay? Last night was… Well, it was bad. I shouldn’t have let things go that far. I fucked up, and I’m sorry.”

Varinia lifts her head and moves to stand up on all four paws. Two pairs of dark eyes meet across Sam’s living room, lit by the first rays of the rising sun.

“Glad to see you’re finally starting to see sense,” she says.

“Yeah, well. Nothing like waking up with a hangover and a whole lot of regret to make you reexamine your behavior.”

She murmurs in agreement. “I’m sorry too, for the record. For walking away from you. That was way over the line, and I shouldn’t have caused us that pain.”

Despite their apologies to each other, Mark knows that the emotional distance that has developed between them cannot be fully fixed with simple words, and mutual forgiveness is a process that they will both need to work on. No matter how far away as Varinia feels from him, however, it will ultimately take more than one downward spiral of a night to completely sever the bond between them.

“Are we going to be okay?” he asks her.

“Well, you’ve always been kind of a hot mess,” she replies, more gently teasing than offering a harsh analysis. “I don’t want to say that you peaked with last night, but…”

Mark rolls his eyes. “I meant you and me, not my general well-being.”

“I know.” She jumps up onto the mattress. Mark reaches out a hesitant hand to stroke her fur, and this time she does not pull away from his touch. “We’ll get there, I think,” she continues. “But first we have to figure out what to do about Damien.”

“Yeah, and we should probably talk to Joan too.” He’s sure that the latter conversation will help him decide what to do about the former, even though he already suspects that Joan’s advice will be to do what he should have done weeks ago and put some much-needed distance between him and Damien. “Fuck. I don’t know which one of those things is going to be worse.”

“You have to do them, though,” Varinia reminds him. “You can't hide here in Sam's apartment forever.”

“I know.” He rubs a hand across his eyes, which are itchy with the discomfort of having fallen asleep with his contact lenses in. His throat is dry from dehydration even with all of the water that Sam had tried to get him to drink last night, and the glass that he has left on the end table next to the couch is empty. “Let’s just try to get through this morning first.”

He gets out of bed and realizes that he has taken off his jeans at some point during the night, even though he has no memory of doing so. He finds them underneath the blankets, likely removed in a brief moment of wakefulness in order to sleep more comfortably. For now, he leaves them where they are and moves through the silent apartment wearing only a T-shirt and underwear, figuring his state of half-undress doesn’t matter when Sam does not seem to be awake yet.

Upon reaching the bathroom, Mark can no longer ignore his increased nausea now that he is upright and moving. After using the toilet he sits down on the cold tile floor, ready to turn his head and throw up into the toilet bowl if the churning in his stomach ever reaches that point. His whole body aches with the strain of having walked more last night than he has done since waking up from the coma, which only adds to his feeling that something has chewed him up and spit him out.

The minutes tick by as he sits there on the bathroom floor with his phone in his hand, scrolling through his social media feeds out of habit even though the updates and news from the non-hungover people in the world could not interest him less right now. Eventually, just as he is thinking that he should get up and have something to eat and drink, he hears a soft knock on the door. The noise startles him, reminding him that he is currently a guest in someone else's home and should not be monopolizing the bathroom.

“Mark?” Sam asks through the door. “Are you okay?”

He pulls himself up onto his feet with a groan. “Yeah, I’m fine. Do you need the bathroom?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” says Mark as he opens the door. “It’s your apartment.”

At the sight of him, Sam immediately flushes pink with embarrassment. “Oh my God. You—You’re not wearing any pants.”

“Oh, right.” Various circumstances have stripped him of any self-consciousness that he should feel in this situation, but he fully understands how awkward this must be for Sam, who is determinedly averting her eyes as if he isn’t wearing anything at all. “Sorry about that. I didn’t think you were awake yet. I’ll, uh, go get the rest of the way dressed, I guess.”

He squeezes past her to leave the bathroom, careful not to accidentally brush up against Peregrine as he does so. After he has retrieved his pants from the living room and tugged them over his legs, he goes into the kitchen to get a glass of water. As he drinks, he realizes how hungry he is now that his immediate nausea has faded. The slices of pizza that he’d eaten last night feel like forever ago, and his stomach growls in a demand for breakfast.

Sam soon enters the kitchen, looking tired in the dark-circles-under-her-eyes way that she often does, and her attire of an oversized sweater and flannel pajama pants further adds to the effect. She walks straight past him to pour some water into the electric kettle to make tea, as if she has forgotten about his presence while on her usual morning auto-pilot. Peregrine nudges his head against her leg in a silent reminder, which prompts her to turn around and acknowledge him with the briefest of double-takes.

“Hey. How are you feeling?” she asks.

“Oh, you know. Like last night was the first time in five years that I got wasted.” Mark takes a sip from his glass. “Man, people are _not_ kidding when they say that hangovers are worse in your late twenties than they are in your early twenties.”

“I’ve never been more than a little wine tipsy in my life, and I didn’t even start drinking until this past spring, so I’m not entirely sure I can relate,” Sam says. “But, um, I can make you some breakfast if you’re hungry. Well, not exactly _make_ , because I don’t really cook, but you know what I mean. And—” She hesitates, as if she is trying to remember how to be a good host after having someone spend the night at her apartment. “Oh, right, coffee. I, um, I don’t have any. I don’t drink it often enough to have a coffee maker or anything like that, but there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts within walking distance if you really want some. Or I can make you some tea, since I already have the kettle going.”

“Tea is fine, thanks,” Mark replies. “And don’t stress about any of this. This isn’t my first hungover rodeo.”

“Sorry. I’m just not used to having people here with me in the morning. I mean, Chloe’s stayed here a few times when she's had a lot to drink or she doesn’t want to worry about getting home late at night, but with her it’s different. She already knows what I’m trying to say even before I open my mouth. I don’t have to worry about saying or doing the wrong thing.”

“You’re taking care of me just fine,” Mark assures her. “And I know I said this last night, but I can’t thank you enough for putting up with me during… well, all of this. You probably didn’t expect to have your night taken over by a drunk guy having a breakdown on your couch.”

“It was definitely a first for me,” she says. “Not that you were a burden or anything, of course. It’s… nice, taking care of someone.” A faint pink flush spreads across her cheeks before she clears her throat and presses onward. “So, um, breakfast. I have cereal, bagels, and I think the bananas should be ripe enough by now. You can help yourself to whatever you want.”

Mark manages to eat half a bagel with cream cheese and a small bowl of cereal along with the mug of tea that Sam has made for him. They sit together in their usual easy silence, broken only by Sam’s polite inquiries about whether he slept well. Mark appreciates not being immediately subjected to further interrogation about what happened yesterday now that he has sobered up, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Sam is internally struggling with the best way to broach the topic of Damien.

“So I guess we should talk about the elephant in the room, huh?” he finally asks, deciding to take initiative himself.

Sam frowns. “What do you mean?”

“You know, the fact that all of this happened because I clearly still have some stuff to work out about what I feel for Damien.”

“Oh. Right.” Her hand tightens around the handle of her mug. “But I’m not really sure how I can help you with that. I mean, I introduced myself to him by punching him in the face. I don’t think I can be impartial about anything involving him.”

“To be fair, I don’t think _anyone_ I know right now can be impartial about him,” Mark replies. “And I’m not sure how much I can trust my own judgment about him, considering… well, everything.”

“It might still be a good idea to talk to Joan,” says Sam. “I mean, I know things are kind of weird between the two of you right now, and I’m not even going to pretend that I understand everything about what’s going on there. But she _does_ give pretty good advice. I’m sure you know that better than anyone.”

And Mark does, because even though Sam has the history of having Joan as someone who will listen to her problems and offer solutions within the professional boundaries of a therapist’s office, he has an entire lifetime of asking for Joan’s advice on all matters big and small. There was once a time when he fully believed that she would have the answer to any dilemma that he faced, but those days are now far behind him. Time and distance have made him very much aware of how imperfectly human his sister is and how there are some things that she will never be able to fix for him.

“Yeah, I know, it’s almost like it’s her job or something,” he manages to offer in a joking response. “Besides, I need to apologize to her for some of the things I said yesterday. I might as well rip off all the Band-Aids at once, right?”

“That's the spirit,” Sam replies. She chews on her lower lip in deliberation over whether she should say anything else. “Can I, um, can I ask you something?” she then asks. “And if I’m crossing any kind of line, you’ll tell me?”

“Sure, go for it,” says Mark, both curious and apprehensive.

“What is it about Damien that makes all of this so complicated for you?”

“I have no fucking clue,” he says. “That’s the worst part. I should have listened to Rin months ago when she told me that I’ll never be able to know how much of my feelings about him are mine and how much are his, but now it’s too late. Even when he can’t use his ability, it’s like he still has power over me, and that scares the shit out of me.”

“Have you considered talking to anyone else about it?" Sam suggests. "Someone professional who isn’t your sister?"

This time, Mark _does_ laugh, only because he's not sure Sam realizes how ludicrous the suggestion is. “Who the hell else am I going to talk to? The only other ‘professionals’ I know of who know about atypicals are at the AM, and I’m _definitely_ never going back there. And going to a regular therapist and talking about how a guy with mind control powers rescued me from a time travel coma sounds like a great way to get myself committed.”

“Sorry, yeah, I guess that’s a stupid idea,” Sam says. “I just… I hope you figure out how to deal with everything that you feel for him. I just want you to be happy. And not to be blunt about it, but you don’t seem very happy at all right now.”

Her last words hit him with the realization that he has indeed been drowning in unhappiness since returning home, no matter how much he tries to convince himself otherwise. He has designated all of those things that he has been hiding from—his fears, his unaddressed trauma, his tangled emotions—as Future Mark’s problems to worry about at a later date. In the back of his mind, however, he knows that Future Mark will never be equipped to address these issues until Present Mark starts dealing with some of them in the first place.

“All you need to do is be here for me,” he says. “And you were definitely here for me in all the best ways last night. You kept me from… ugh, I don’t even know. Probably either passing out on the sidewalk, getting arrested for public intoxication, or both. And I can’t say I wouldn’t have deserved it.”

“Of course you wouldn’t have deserved it.” Sam reaches across the table in a hesitant motion. Her fingers brush against Mark’s hand, which makes his heart beat faster with the reminder of how much she cares for him. “You’re worth something, Mark, no matter what’s happened to you or how many mistakes you’ve made. And I know I’m the last person who should tell someone to stop feeling sorry for themselves, because I’ve spent the past decade doing just that to the point that it kept me from living my life. But I think a lot of people would agree with me that you’re being too hard on yourself.”

Damien, of course, has never told him that he has worth, and this entire conversation has pulled back the layers to reveal how much Damien doesn’t care about him. Now that he thinks about it, the only times that Damien has ever cared about him as a person have been when he has something to gain from it. Mark should have fully recognized this detail as a red flag ages ago, but hindsight will always win against whatever he has felt in the moment.

“Yeah, well, tell that to the five years I spent in captivity and/or isolation,” he replies. “That’ll fuck with anyone’s self-esteem.”

Sam continues to regard him with sympathy and concern as they both drink from their mugs. “Anyway, you’re welcome to hang out here for as long as you need,” she eventually says, pushing past the difficult subjects at hand. “It’s not like I have any big plans for today. I’ll probably just stay home, do a little bit of atypical research work, and try not to eat an entire bag of Halloween candy by myself.”

“Oh, right. Today’s Halloween, isn’t it?” Mark replies. He used to love this time of year and would spend weeks coming up with the perfect costume, but dressing up and going to parties has been far from his top priority in recent weeks. “As tempting as it is to stay and gorge on candy, I should probably head home soon. I’ve already taken up enough of your hospitality.”

“Okay. But call or text me if you need anything, all right? I’ll always be here.”

“I will. And thanks.”

Mark drinks the rest of his tea and helps Sam tidy up the kitchen and living room as a small means of repaying her kindness in letting him be such a big imposition upon her usually quiet life. After she has assured him that he has done more than enough to put her apartment back in order, he gathers his belongings, offers her a final farewell, and pulls his previously discarded sweater over his head so he doesn’t freeze on the way home. 

Joan has left for work by the time he arrives at the apartment, and so he is free to do what he wants without her scrutiny. Rather than face the rest of the day ahead of him, he takes out the contacts that he has accidentally worn all night and curls up in bed with a bottle of water. Varinia jumps up to lie next to him, no longer keeping an angry distance from him even though they still have a lot to fix between them. He drifts in and out of slumber, never staying asleep for more than half an hour at a time, but he is still surprised when he checks his phone during a period of wakefulness and discovers that most of the morning has already passed.

“Guess we should try being at least a little productive today, huh?” he says to Varinia as he drags himself out of bed.

“We should at least stop by Joan’s office at some point,” Varinia replies. “I’m not sure how busy she’ll be today, but I don’t think we should wait until she gets home to talk to her.”

Mark stretches his arms high above his head and rises onto the balls of his feet, wincing at the continued ache in his muscles. “Yeah, because what better place to admit that you screwed up than in a therapist’s office, right?”

“It’s better than ignoring or denying the problem until it reaches another breaking point,” Varinia points out.

“Wow, way to call us out,” Mark grumbles. “Ugh, we’re going to have to tell her everything about our fight, aren’t we?”

“Admitting the problem is always the first step,” Varinia reminds him, even though he knows that she is equally ashamed of how far their angry words had escalated last night.

Knowing that he should visit Joan now before he finds an excuse to stay home, Mark goes into the bathroom to take a shower, hoping to wash away his hungover regret. He then puts on some clean clothes and resigns himself to wearing his glasses for the rest of the day to give his eyes a break. He still feels like death warmed over, but at least he will not be walking into Joan’s office while half-asleep and wearing yesterday’s clothes.

“All right,” he says to Varinia after he has put on his coat and shoes. “Let’s get this over with.”

He arrives at Joan’s office twenty minutes later. When he opens the door into the waiting room, he does not sense any atypicals in the vicinity, which tells him that he must have timed his visit well to not interrupt Joan in the middle of a session. The space of the waiting room has grown more familiar to him from the couple other times that he has stopped by since his initial reunion with her, but this is the first time that he has noticed the decorative strand of shiny cardboard bats and the pumpkin-shaped bowl of candy that adorn the desk. They must be contributions from Joan’s receptionist, Mark decides, since Joan has never been one to get enthusiastic about Halloween decorations.

“Good morning, Mark,” the receptionist in question, Sarah, says to him. It speaks a lot to her capabilities as a friendly and welcoming face in the office that she immediately remembers him after meeting him only briefly during one of the other times that he has stopped by the office. “How can I help you?”

The greeting of “good morning” catches him off guard until he remembers that it is only eleven A.M. and this has been one of the longest mornings in his life. “Uh, is Joan available right now?” he asks. “I need to talk to her.”

“Her next appointment isn’t until this afternoon, but let me check to make sure she’s not busy with anything else.” She presses a button on an intercom system to page into the next room. “Dr. Bright? Your brother’s here to see you. Should I send him in?”

“Yes, please,” comes Joan’s reply. “Thank you, Sarah.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Mark echoes her after the intercom has disconnected.

“Take a piece of candy with you,” Sarah encourages him.

Her sparrow daemon hops up onto the surface of the desk and nudges his small beak against the candy bowl in a further suggestion. Mark obediently reaches in and takes out a fun-sized Snickers bar.

“Thanks,” he says again. “Uh, happy Halloween, I guess.”

He pops the candy bar into his mouth and stuffs the wrapper into his pocket as he approaches the door to Joan’s office. He closes his hand around the doorknob and braces himself to face Joan’s inevitable judgment.

“You ready?” Varinia murmurs to him.

Mark nods, his mouth still filled with chocolate. “It’s not like things can get any worse, right?” he says after he has swallowed.

He opens the door and finds Joan sitting at her desk, the glow of the computer screen reflecting against her glasses. “Hey, Joanie,” he offers in a hesitant greeting as he closes the door behind him.

“Hey,” she replies. She turns her attention away from her computer to fully focus upon him, and Phoebus takes flight from his position on her desk to approach Varinia. “Well, don’t you look terrible.”

“Gee, thanks a lot.”

Mark sinks down to sit on the couch while Varinia and Phoebus engage in quiet conversation with each other. He almost takes off his shoes and puts his feet up on the cushions until he remembers that this is where Joan’s patients sit and he should therefore treat it with more respect.

“Did you come straight from Sam’s?” she asks.

“No. I stopped at home for a couple of hours first. I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. I already owe her big time for putting up with me last night.”

Joan purses her lips in concern, and Mark is sure that she has a thousand questions about what happened yesterday after he stormed out of her apartment. “Do you want something to drink?” she asks instead. “You look like you could use a cup of coffee.”

“No, I’m fine,” he lies, not wanting her to go through the trouble for the sake of his hungover ass. “Sam made us tea at her place earlier. Although that was at like seven-thirty in the morning, so...”

Joan’s look of skepticism indicates that she sees straight through his attempt to downplay how much he needs caffeine injected directly into his veins. “I’m making you some coffee,” she declares.

She rises from her desk and busies herself with the office’s Keurig machine. Phoebus, meanwhile, spreads his wings to land on the coffee table to speak to Mark directly. True to his nature as part of her being, Phoebus’s golden-yellow gaze is like getting a staredown from Joan herself, and it’s amazing how much her Therapist Look can be perfectly mimicked in a bird’s expression.

“Rin told me about how you and her got into a pretty big fight last night,” Phoebus says.

“Yeah, uh, you could say that.” At least Varinia and Phoebus’s conversation seems to have been more productive than the awkward dance that Mark and Joan are doing around the issues at hand. 

“Is there anything that we need to talk about?” Phoebus asks. “If you and your daemon are having serious disagreements that lead to one of you walking away from the other, that’s usually a sign of an underlying issue that needs to be—”

“No offense, Phoebus, but Joan’s attempts to psychoanalyze me aren’t any less annoying when they come from you,” Mark interrupts him. He regrets the snapped words as soon as he sees the hurt feelings upon the daemon’s face. “Sorry. That was rude of me. It’s been a rough twenty-four hours, and I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”

“What’s this about you and Rin having a fight?” Joan asks as she approaches the couch with a cup of hot coffee. She passes it to Mark and chooses to sit next to him rather than in the armchair that she uses while talking to her patients. He is grateful that she is not hiding behind professionalism for this particular conversation, as easy as it would be for her to do so.

“We, uh… Things got a little heated between us after we left the apartment last night,” he says. “Well, a _lot_ heated, actually. We haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye about Damien for a while now, and we ended up hitting a breaking point. I told her I hated her, and…” He casts a glance toward Varinia, unsure if he should let her tell the rest of the story.

“I tried to walk further away than our bond would let me,” Varinia finishes for him, bowing her head in regret.

Joan’s face scrunches up in a combination of concern and pity. “Oh, _Mark_.”

“Yeah, I know what you’re going to say,” he replies, unable to hide his exasperation. “But we’re dealing with it.”

He knows that the statement is a lie as soon as it leaves his mouth, because last night has proven that he does not know how to handle _any_ of the emotional struggles that he has faced since getting out of the AM. He has definitely hit rock bottom in more ways than one, and the upward climb will only be more difficult if he continues to pretend that he he can manage all of his problems by himself.

“Are you sure about that?” asks Joan.

Mark takes a sip of coffee. When he looks up, he sees that the worry has not left her expression. “You’re going to say that I haven’t been dealing with anything at all, aren’t you?” he replies.

“Not in such plain terms,” she says. “But last night definitely confirmed some things that I’ve been worried about.”

Mark shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Guess this is the part where I apologize for being a fuck-up, huh?”

“You’re not a—”

“No, it’s okay. You can say it. I know you want to.”

“All right. Yesterday you _were_ being a little bit of a fuck-up,” says Joan. “But I don’t think you’re unsalvageable.”

Mark gives a rueful laugh. “You probably wouldn't have said that last part yesterday.”

“I don’t,” she repeats, ignoring his cynical objection. “You have your moments of spiraling into self-destruction, yes, but that’s not all you are. And I’m sorry for being so harsh with you. I shouldn’t have let my emotions get the better of me like that.”

“Yeah, ‘spiraling into self-destruction’ is one way of putting it,” Mark says, unable to ignore the reminder of how last night he hurt _himself_ most of all. “And honestly, you shouldn’t feel bad about letting your emotions get the better of you, even if what you said hurt. Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to say that it’s not healthy to keep everything bottled up?”

“Yes, well, I suppose I’m not always the best at following my own advice,” Joan admits. “But I’m still sorry that I made you feel like you weren’t welcome in my home because of the choices you’ve made. You know I would never truly think that.”

“I know,” Mark assures her. “Besides, I definitely said some things that were out of line too. You don’t deserve to be treated like that, especially after how hard you worked to get me back from the AM. I know that we…” He swallows, pushing forward with another topic that has been mostly unaddressed between them. “I know that things have been kind of difficult between us these last few weeks. And maybe that’s a problem for another day, but I hate how we don’t really know how to talk to each other anymore when it used to be so easy for us.”

“I don’t like it either,” says Joan. “But I think the first thing you need to do is improve things within yourself. Like I said, last night confirmed a few things that I’d been worried about.”

The question of the exact nature of her concern poises itself on Mark's lips, but he’d rather not hear the laundry list of his unhealthy behaviors repeated back at him. Instead, he exchanges glances with Varinia, knowing that they will have to do what they have been avoiding and ask Joan for the closest thing to psychological advice that she can give to them.

“I know I’m not your patient and never could be,” he begins. “But, hypothetically speaking, if someone came in here and told you about how they had a big fight with their daemon and that things haven’t been great between them for a while now, how would you help them?”

Joan tilts her head to study him, and _there’s_ the Therapist Look that he has been waiting to see from her. “Well,” she replies, “I’d try to explore any problems with communication, whether that means listening to each other more often or expressing their differences in opinion in a less hostile manner. I’d also encourage them to practice more positive self-talk with each other, if that’s something that has been lacking. But this is all still hypothetical, of course.”

“Oh, definitely. One hundred percent.” Then, dropping all pretense, he adds, “But, uh, thanks. I’ll give some of that a shot.”

The clock on the wall ticks annoyingly loudly with each second that passes by. Mark suspects that his sensitivity to its volume is due to his hangover, but he still wonders how Joan’s patients can focus on activities like mindfulness exercises when the clock is so loud. He leans forward and rests his head in his hands, unable to tune out the ticking now that he has become aware of it.

“So how drunk did you get last night?” Joan asks.

Mark lifts his head, mentally running through what Sam had told her on the phone last night. He doesn’t _think_ she revealed anything about him getting smashed, but his specific memories of last night are fairly vague beyond a certain point. He also wouldn’t be surprised if Sam called Joan earlier this morning to offer a heads-up about the state that he is in.

“Who says I got drunk at all?” he says, deciding to play innocent.

“Please. I’ve seen you plenty of times after a night of drinking. I _know_ what Hungover Mark looks like.” She gestures up and down at his current state. “You haven’t bothered to put your contacts in, and you look like you want nothing more than to crawl back into bed. Unless you’ve been hit by a sudden illness, all the signs point to a hangover.”

“Maybe this is just my Halloween costume,” he jokes. He tries to smile, but the expression feels half-hearted. “I’m _so_ glad you figured out that I’m going as my hungover self this year. I thought it might’ve been a hard one to guess.”

Joan rolls her eyes. “I should have known that you were going to be a smart-ass about it. But you’re not fooling me.”

“Yeah, fine, you got me,” Mark says, yielding to her. “I _did_ get a little wasted last night. It… Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess.”

The trace of Joan’s smile fades. “I suppose there are worse things you could have done,” she says. “But I can’t say I’m happy that getting drunk was your immediate instinct for handling the situation.”

“You’re lucky I got him to see sense when I did,” says Varinia. “He was _this_ close to finding his way to Damien’s apartment and knocking on the door.” 

Phoebus stretches his wings at his position on the arm of the couch. “You only achieved that through causing both of you severe pain,” he reminds her. “I don’t think you have any room to act superior.”

“Phoebus,” Joan chides him gently, although the look on her face suggests that she does not entirely disagree with his judgment. “Speaking of Damien, though. What are you going to do about him?”

“I, uh, I was hoping you could help me with that, actually.” Mark takes a drink from his cup of coffee as he mentally assembles everything that he needs to say. “I know you think I should just stop seeing him, but it’s not that easy. It’s like… I don’t know, something comes over me whenever I talk to him, and suddenly every bad thing he’s done doesn’t matter anymore. Or at least it doesn’t matter enough for me to want to immediately shut down the conversation. I feel like he’s always going to have some kind of hold over me no matter what I do, and I wish he didn’t.”

Joan’s brow furrows in the way it always does when she is trying to figure something out. “You can still use his ability when you’re around him, right?” she asks.

“Yeah,” says Mark. “You want me to use his ability to make him stay away from me, don’t you?” He has anticipated this response from her, but he still is unsure of what to make of the suggestion. “Do you think it would even work in the long term? I know my control over him is weirdly powerful, but it _does_ still wear off after a while. It doesn’t seem completely foolproof to do things that way.”

“No, and I’m afraid nothing will ever be foolproof when it comes to Damien. But as long as you have his ability at your disposal, you might as well use it to your advantage.”

“You know, I’ve had plenty of time to process this new morally ambiguous version of you,” Mark says. “But I’m still not really sure what to think of it.” When she grimaces in regret, he adds, “Sorry. That kind of sounds like I’m calling you out, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose I’ve earned it. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve done, both here and at the AM. But the world isn’t always as black and white as we want it to be.”

“Yeah, I know.” On one level he understands how most of the questionable actions that Joan has done have been entirely for his sake, but he also hates how she has become the type of person who deals in lies and manipulation for the perceived greater good. “You do what you have to do. I should probably take the same approach when it comes to Damien.”

“If you’re not comfortable with—” Joan begins, but Mark waves her off.

“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll take care of it, I promise.” He exhales a breath, drinks another sip of coffee, and then stands up from the couch. “It’ll be hard, but it’s what I should have done from the start, especially because everything with him caused me so much trouble last night. I guess I needed that rude awakening.”

“I’m glad you understand.” Joan’s expression softens into her usual gentle concern on his behalf. “Let me know if you need anything else, all right?”

“I think the coffee and advice is enough for now. And sorry again for being such a mess,” Mark says, continuing today’s trend of apologies. “I’ll try not to make a habit out of it.”

“I know you won’t.”

Joan rises from the couch as well. An uncertain moment passes between them before they move to hug each other. The warmth and comfort of Joan’s embrace has not changed since the years when everything was far less complicated for them, but something is now missing from it. No matter how honest and open they have been with each other during this conversation, an enormous wall continues to separate them, and Mark does not know how to continue chipping away at it.

“I’ll see you when you get home, then,” Mark says after he withdraws from her arms. “Maybe I can pick up a bag of candy and we can find something suitably Halloween-y to watch?” he adds, hesitant in his invitation in case she has other plans for the evening. 

“That sounds like a great plan,” Joan replies. She squeezes his shoulder in support. “Take it easy today, all right?”

Mark nods. “Love you, Joanie,” he says in a final automatic farewell before leaving the office.

“Love you too,” Joan echoes him.

The words are the same as the countless other times that they have exchanged them, but now Mark feels like they are reading from a script, going through the motions of what used to be so natural for them because it’s easier than figuring out how to navigate the new reality of their relationship. He knows that it’s not fair to either of them to continue clinging to the memories of something that now has an entirely different shape, but he has no better ideas about how to proceed. Instead, all he can do is offer Joan a trace of a smile before leaving her office.

“That wasn’t as much of a disaster as we expected,” Varinia says to him once they are in the privacy of the empty elevator.

“I guess Sam was right,” he replies. “Joan _does_ give pretty good advice most of the time. Even if you and I probably should have figured out for ourselves that we need to listen to each other better.”

Varinia murmurs in agreement. “There’s still that other thing that we have to do, though.”

“Right.” Mark exhales a long sigh at the prospect of confronting the source of almost every mistake that he has made over the past few weeks. “We’re going to have to talk to Damien.”


	12. Chapter 12

Mark should have arranged to see Damien on that same day to cut off his problems as soon as possible, but in his habit of designating difficult tasks as “Future Mark’s problem,” he gives himself another day to get into the right state of mind. The extra time does not give him the burst of courage that he needs, however. When the next morning arrives, he becomes caught in a loop of picking up his phone, finding Damien’s name in his contacts list, and poising his finger above the call button until he second-guesses himself and puts down his phone.

“Just do it already,” Varinia tells him after his fifth attempt. “It’ll only get more difficult the longer you put it off.”

Knowing that listening to her is an essential part of rebuilding their relationship, he takes a deep breath and presses the call button before he has the chance to doubt his actions. His heart pounds in anticipation as he waits for Damien to pick up, and Varinia paces anxious circles around the bedroom until she halts in attention when Mark hears Damien’s voice on the other end of the phone.

“It’s about time you called,” Damien grumbles.

“Yeah, hello to you too,” says Mark. A distinctly pathetic image enters his mind of Damien sitting alone in his apartment since Sunday night, watching his phone as he waits for Mark to call or text him. “Look, we need to talk. Can we meet up somewhere later today?”

Damien does not respond at first, undoubtedly weighing the costs and benefits of seeing Mark in person again. “You’ve been ignoring me for two days and _now_ you think we need to talk?” he finally replies. “What do you even want from me?”

“If you don’t have even the slightest clue about why you and I need to have a serious talk, then you’re probably beyond help.” As much as Mark wants to join Varinia in her resumed pacing, he remains rooted in place where he sits on his bed. “Does this afternoon work for you? Say, two o’clock at the park where we ran into each other the other day?”

“Yeah, okay,” Damien says in unhesitating agreement, even though Mark cannot exert any direct influence over him through the phone.

“Good. I’ll, um, I’ll see you then.”

Mark ends the call and then collapses backwards, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling. Varinia jumps up to join him, although she does not curl up comfortably next to him like she usually does.

“Good call in asking him to meet in a public place,” she says. “I feel like it gives you a little more accountability to not start kissing him again or something like that.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” Mark replies, stung by her distrust. He lifts his head to look at her. “I’m not _completely_ incapable of learning from my mistakes, you know.”

“Right, sorry.” She exhales a frustrated breath at how difficult it is for her to unlearn her recent habit of assuming the worst about his actions. “Are you ready to see him again?”

“No. But I don’t think I ever will be, so I might as well get it over with now.”

Even though he has a few hours to prepare himself, his restless energy causes him to leave the apartment early, and so he arrives at the park more than half an hour before his and Damien’s scheduled meeting time. He finds a bench and sits down, pretending to be busy on his phone as he looks up every few minutes expecting to see Damien standing in front of him. Not even listening to music can distract him from the heart-pounding anxiety that he feels, and Varinia keeps casting nervous looks at him from where she sits at his feet.

He finally sees a glimpse of a familiar figure in the distance, who has arrived fashionably late at eight minutes past their scheduled meeting time. Their eyes meet across the path, and as Damien quickens his pace Mark puts down his phone, removes his headphones, and mentally prepares for what is coming next.

“Hey,” he manages to say upon Damien’s approach. He bites back the urge to add “About time you showed up.”

“Hey,” Damien replies gruffly.

He stands with his hands jammed into his pockets while Mena sits at her usual spot on his shoulder. In the shadow of the hood of his sweatshirt, Mark sees the small bruise of the hickey that he had left on his neck the last time they’d seen each other. When Mena catches him staring, she crawls inside Damien’s hood, pressing her body against his throat to conceal the spot.

“Are you gonna sit down?” Mark asks. He gestures at the empty space beside him.

Damien plops down unceremoniously on the bench, because of _course_ he will not object to the invitation when Mark has realized too late that his ability has reached out to him with the suggestion. He automatically withdraws his hold, even though he knows he will have to continue to exert his control during this conversation no matter how gross it makes him feel.

“I thought that Dr. B. wouldn’t want you seeing me after everything she said about me being bad news,” Damien says. “Pretty bold of you to go against her after what happened the other day.”

“What happened the other day,” Mark repeats with a scoff. “I don’t think you realize how much things spiraled out of control after she kicked you out of the apartment. You’re lucky I even called you here instead of ghosting you completely.”

“It’s not like I did anything wrong,” says Damien. “ _You_ were the one who invited me back to your place.”

Once again, Mark finds Damien’s lack of self-awareness truly astonishing. “You did me wrong by getting yourself so deep into my head that you made me think that staying in contact with you was a good idea,” he replies. “And I don’t think you care about me enough to realize that some distance would have been the best thing for us.”

“I _do_ care about you—” Damien begins. 

Before Mark can figure out how to respond to his claim, Varinia is already speaking. “You don’t,” she declares. “All you’ve ever done is use your ability to trick us into thinking you’re someone who cares about us. And it might have taken Mark a while to fully accept that, but _I’ve_ always known not to trust anything you say or make us feel.”

Damien turns his focus toward her with a scowl. “Well, I can’t use my ability anymore, can I? Whose fault is that, again?”

“That doesn't mean you’re off the hook,” Varinia says. “I don’t care how lonely you are or that you think that Mark is the only one who can understand you. You should have just stayed away like everyone wants.”

“Rin,” Mark warns her, appreciative of her initiative but wary of how Damien will react to her unhesitating harshness.

“Yeah, sure, but I know how the whole ‘keeping your distance’ thing would have turned out,” Damien retorts. “You would have just kept hanging out with all of your new atypical friends while leaving me out in the cold. It was never about ‘getting distance’ so that your control over me would wear off. It was only ever about getting rid of me.”

“Maybe that _would_ have been for the best,” Mark replies. “But it doesn’t matter now. I’m done ignoring what I’ve known deep down all along. I want you to stop calling me, texting me, and trying to conveniently run into me while I’m out. Whatever this is that we have, we need to put an end to it.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me—” Damien begins, but Mark has already reached out toward his mind, grabbing hold of his desires to twist them in his favor. Damien immediately pushes against the intrusion, but he is ultimately powerless against the ability that has been turned against him. The anger upon his face slackens into the compliance that accompanies Mark’s control over him.

“I’m sorry that I have to force you like this,” Mark says. “But I’m pretty sure it’s the only way you’ll listen. Because I can’t keep going on like this. _Rin_ and I can’t keep going on like this,” he adds, even though Damien will never understand how much of a strain the past month has been on them.

Damien’s face twitches as he tries again to push against Mark’s control. “You can’t do this,” he insists. Each word comes out of his mouth with an enormous amount of effort. “After everything that we’ve been through together—”

He falls silent in accordance with Mark’s desires. “Sorry, but I can and I will,” Mark says. “Maybe I’ll never really be free from you after everything you’ve done to get inside my head, but I’ll never know until I take some time to figure my shit out. And I need to do that without you muddying the waters.”

From inside Damien’s hood, Mena lets out a quiet squeak of distress, a sound that Mark has not heard since Varinia had lunged at her when Mark overtook Damien’s ability. Damien hushes her, and when his eyes return to Mark his expression has returned to its previous blankness, sapped of all color and motivation. It’s a pitiful way to leave him, but Mark cannot hesitate in his actions if he wants this to work.

He rises to his feet. “Goodbye, Damien,” he says with as much finality as he can manage.

He turns around and takes a step away from the bench. Just as he thinks that the last few minutes have not been nearly as bad as he’d anticipated, he feels a nudge against the threads of control that have wrapped around Damien’s mind. He tightens his grip, but the resistance grows stronger in protest.

“Don’t leave me,” Damien pleads with the same desperation that he had shown in the motel room where everything had gone wrong. “Please. You can’t leave. I—I love you.”

Mark freezes in place. He must have misheard Damien, because there is _no_ way that he has declared his love for him here in the middle of a public park immediately after Mark has told him why they cannot see each other anymore. He looks questioningly at Varinia, hoping that she will confirm that his ears have made a terrible mistake, but instead she stares back at him with the same confusion and shock that he feels. 

“What did you just say?” he asks.

“I love you,” Damien repeats.

The statement comes out smaller this time, but it is no less confident in its declaration. Aware that he may be on the brink of falling into the trap that he has tried to avoid, Mark turns around to face him. Damien’s expression is pure sincerity, different from the begrudging honesty that Mark has previously dragged out of him with his ability. This is a display of how Damien truly feels, and it makes Mark’s stomach want to drop out from the rest of his body.

“No,” he says, shaking his head in furious denial. “No, you don’t.”

“I do.” A tiny crack shakes Damien’s voice in a display of vulnerability that Mark has rarely seen from him. “You’re the only person who’s ever understood me. You’re the only person I can have something _real_ with. And I _thought_ you were the only person who’d never leave me, but here you fucking are.”

Mena crawls out from inside his hood, and he scoops her into his arms to hold her close. Her mournful gaze almost makes Mark forget what he wants to say, but he pushes past the temptation to let pity and sympathy cloud his judgment.

“It could never be real, Damien,” he says. He tries to be gentle yet firm in his response, and it’s not until the last word has left his lips that he realizes that he is channeling Joan with his tone of voice. The curl of Damien’s lips in disgust suggests that he has noticed the similarity as well. “Regardless of how you intended to use your ability, you still did a _lot_ to fuck with my head. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to figure out what I feel for you, but I know it isn’t love. Maybe one day you’ll be able to genuinely find love with someone, but I don’t think it can be with me. Not after everything that’s happened.”

Damien regards him with the same hopeless expression that he did when he realized that he can no longer access his ability: as if his entire world has crumbled around him with Mark’s dismissal of his feelings. He then realizes that this may be the first time that Damien has faced outright rejection since he was a child first coming into his ability. How many other people has he expressed affection for, confident that they will give him the answer that he wants, only to eventually realize that they never truly cared about him at all? Or is _Mark_ the one who has forced the confession out of him, and his demands for honesty have led to this unexpected display of emotions? Either way, there is something inescapably tragic about how Damien’s history of behavior has always prevented him from getting what he has been looking for all along.

“Mark,” Damien says, his voice trembling and broken. “Please—”

“I’m sorry,” is all Mark can say in response, even though he knows that he should not be apologizing. “I really am. But I need to do this.”

He does not offer a proper farewell this time. Instead, he imposes his will upon Damien for what he hopes will be the final time, weaving into his mind his desire for Damien to stay quiet and not follow him. The mental pushback wavers and then falls away until Mark only feels the pliant openness of how Damien is now completely bound to his control. He maintains his hold until he has left the range for sharing Damien’s ability, leaving him with an echo of suggestion that he hopes will remain long after he has left the scene

Mark knows that he should not look back at him, but he cannot resist a glimpse over his shoulder while Damien remains in his line of sight. He is fumbling with his lighter to light a cigarette, and he takes a long drag from it before leaning forward to rest his head in his hands. The cigarette remains between his fingers, trailing out a thin line of smoke that disintegrates into the surrounding air. Mena nuzzles her nose against him consolingly as his shoulders shake in a motion that is barely perceptible from this distance.

“Mark,” Varinia prompts him. She slows her pace to remain at his side. “Come on.”

“I know it’s the only way we can move forward,” he says. “But I still wonder if he deserves something better.”

“It’s not about what he deserves,” she reminds him. “It’s about what’s best for us. And right now, we need to get the hell out of here before we start second-guessing ourselves.”

“Right,” Mark says. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right beside you.”

He turns away from the distant sight of Damien and meets the earnest determination in his daemon’s eyes, trusting that they have made the right choice in taking the first step forward.

* * *

In the days that follow, Mark expects to develop a sense of closure and peace, but instead he does not feel much of anything at all, as if this whole thing with Damien has ended not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Life continues on, of course, and he easily finds ways for him to distract himself from the memory of the desperation in Damien’s eyes. He binges the entire final season of _Mad Men_ over the course of a day and a half, cooks dinner at Sam’s apartment with her and Chloe, and edits some of the recent photos that he has taken. He doesn’t sleep well in the nights that follow, but he has accepted that restless sleep is an inevitable part of his life now. The insomnia and nightmares will always be there, regardless of how he has left things with Damien.

Two days later, the illusion of normalcy unravels when Joan comes home from work looking deeply preoccupied. When Mark had stopped by her office earlier in the day, she’d all but kicked him out because of an upcoming appointment with Damien, and so it does not take much for him to assume that something from Damien’s session is the cause of her consternation. The look on her face goes far beyond her usual reaction to Damien’s familiar brand of bullshit, however. She appears even more caught off guard than she did when Mark came home with a powerless Damien in tow, and all of the possibilities of what could have gone wrong put him on edge.

“What’s wrong?” he asks as she sinks down next to him onto the couch.

Joan lets out the long breath of a sigh and sits up straighter, pushing her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. Phoebus settles on the arm of the couch, and she strokes his feathered head to comfort him.

“I suppose there’s no use in hiding it from you,” she says. “It’s probably for the best that you know about it sooner rather than later.”

“Oh my God, you’re freaking me out.” Mark lays a hand on Varinia’s back to soothe their shared nervousness. “Just spit it out already.”

“Damien’s ability is back.”

The words hang in the air, initially not taking on any meaning until Mark fully processes what Joan has said. The full meaning then washes over him like a powerful wave, pulling him under until he is drowning. All he can do is sit there in shock as he runs through all of the consequences of this revelation.

“Fuck,” is all he manages to say. He presses his fingers deeper into Varinia’s fur to prevent himself from jumping to his feet and screaming. She grimaces at the pressure, and he strokes her more gently in apology.

“My thoughts exactly,” Joan agrees.

“How do you know?” he asks. “I mean, obviously you must have felt him using his ability when you met with him, but do you know how or when…”

“Well, he didn’t exactly try to hide that he was in control again. You and I both know that he can never resist showing off. And as for when it came back, he said that he woke up yesterday and something in his brain had snapped back into place. I’m not sure whether there was a particular incident that triggered it, or if he simply reached the end of the time that he needed until he was back to normal, but all that matters is that he can use his ability again.”

Mark counts back the days in his head. “Oh, shit,” he mutters when he realizes the timing. “I think it was my fault.”

“What do you mean?” Joan asks, although the disconcerted way that Phoebus ruffles his feathers indicates that both of them have already begun to mentally assemble the pieces of the puzzle.

“If his power came back yesterday, that would have been the morning after I talked to him,” Mark says. “He must have—wait, did he say anything to you about how that conversation went?”

“He said that the two of you spoke, but he didn’t seem interested in discussing the details.” Joan frowns. “Do you think something you said might have caused his ability to come back?”

“He…” Mark had evaded the subject yesterday when Joan asked him whether he’d had any success in talking to Damien, only confirming that he had indeed spoken to him. He doesn’t want to worry her with what Damien confessed to him, but she should know the truth if he is indeed partially responsible for this turn of events. “Well, he told me he loves me, first of all.”

Joan’s mouth twists into an unreadable expression. “Oh,” is all she says.

“Yeah.” Mark looks down at his hands in his lap, unable to face her judgment. “And of course I couldn’t tell him that I feel the same way, so maybe—I don’t know, what if getting rejected was enough of a shock for his brain to turn itself right side out again?” He lifts his gaze to look at her once more. “Ugh, maybe I _should_ have just ghosted him and kept my stupid mouth shut.”

“You had no idea how he was going to react,” Joan reminds him gently.

“I know, but…” He trails off as the hopelessness of the situation closes in around him, because there is no way that he can spin the return of Damien’s ability into anything remotely positive. “Now everything I did to get him to stay away is going to be for nothing, isn’t it? It’ll probably just be a matter of time before he shows up on our doorstep demanding to see me.”

“I don’t think seeing you is his priority right now, actually,” says Joan. “Like I said before, he said surprisingly little about you. He seemed to be more interested in... other matters.”

Mark scoffs. “He confessed his love for me last time we saw each other, and I get the feeling he’s not ready to move on yet. What else could he _possibly_ want now that he’s back to being able to get whatever his heart desires?”

It is now Joan’s turn to avoid his eyes. Phoebus, who has been watching Mark intently throughout the conversation, has become very focused on preening his feathers as well.

“Come on, Joanie,” Mark prompts her. “He must have given you _some_ kind of hint about what he’s after.”

Joan lets out a deep exhale of breath. “He… He wanted to know if there was someone who could help him get stronger so that his ability wouldn’t be overpowered again,” she says. “I had no choice but to mention Wadsworth to him, and he definitely seemed interested in finding a way to contact her.”

Wadsworth’s name hits him like an ice-cold bucket of water. He has tried to keep her out of his thoughts for these past few weeks, but it is often a losing battle when she likes to show up in his nightmares as a reminder of how deeply he has suffered at her hands. Damien must be truly desperate if he is willingly seeking help from the AM, although perhaps all he needs is the confidence that he can use his ability to convince Wadsworth to give him what he wants. If only he knew what Wadsworth is capable of, the manipulation and mistreatment that Mark has buried so deep that not even Damien’s probing questions can pull those memories out of him—but maybe none of that matters to Damien in the face of what he desires.

“Are you okay?” Joan asks when he does not respond to her.

“I’m...” he begins. Unsure of whether he can effectively deny his feelings when he is certain that he has visibly paled at the mention of Wadsworth, he instead chooses to bypass her concern. “I don’t think he realizes what she could do to him,” he says. "Going to the AM for answers—going to _her_ for answers—I can’t see that ending well for him at all, even when he can use his ability again.”

“I’m certainly worried about what he’s going to do regardless of whether he gets what he wants from Wadsworth,” Joan admits. Her knuckles have gone white where her hands are clasped together anxiously. “I don’t know whether he’s more desperate or determined, but neither of those things is good when it comes to what he can do. And I thought you deserved to know, because—”

“Because he’s probably afraid that I’m going to hijack his ability if we ever see each other again,” Mark finishes for her. “And he doesn’t want to lose the control that he just got back.”

She nods. “I’m sorry this had to happen. I know we all just want to be free of him, but now everything's so uncertain, and…”

Mark lets her statement trail off into the unsettling possibilities of what Damien’s next move will be. “Yeah. I’m sorry too.”

Joan rises from the couch, and Phoebus spreads his wings to follow her. After a moment’s hesitation, she says, “Just please don’t do anything stupid, all right?”

“I mean, I can’t promise that I’ll never do anything stupid _ever_ ,” Mark replies, forcing his mouth into a smile. “But don’t worry, I think I’ve hit my cap on ‘stupid Damien things’ for a while.”

Joan manages a small smile as well. “I’m glad to hear it.”

After she has left the room to let him continue to process what has happened by himself, he collapses against the couch’s cushions with a sigh of defeat. Varinia looks equally dispirited where she sinks down to rest her head on her front paws.

“Of all the shit luck, huh?” he says to her. “Do you really think he’s not going to try to immediately contact us? What if he was lying to Joan so that she thinks that he has different priorities?”

“Stop that,” she tells him. “We can’t let him get in our head again, or all of this _really_ will have been for nothing. But,” she then admits, “if Joanie is this freaked out, we know it _has_ to be bad.”

Mark murmurs in agreement. There’s something uniquely terrifying in seeing Joan so thoroughly caught off guard when she has spent so long hiding behind the calm and collected mask of her work. The worst part is that she might not be scared _enough_ of what could happen if Damien crosses paths with Wadsworth. Although she and Wadsworth spent years working together in a friendship that Mark does not think he will ever understand, he suspects that he is one of the few people who has seen Wadsworth’s true self, the shrewd ruthlessness and lack of hesitation that she shows as she dismantles the psyches of her subjects piece by piece. He has a sinking feeling that not even Damien at his full capabilities stands a chance against her.

“You’re not going to go see him again, are you?” Varinia asks.

Mark shakes his head. “I’m not sure that will accomplish anything. If he’s doing all of this because he’s afraid of me overpowering him again, it’s probably better that I stay away from him. Because I don’t want to be under _his_ control again either. I might be more powerful than he is, but he’s been doing this for a lot longer than I have. I don’t want to test my luck and have something _else_ go wrong, like when my ability first came back.”

“Finally, some common sense,” Varinia teases him. She lifts her head and yawns widely from the lack of sleep that they got last night. “You know,” she continues in a shift from good-natured ribbing to sincerity, “I’m proud of you.”

“Why? Because I’m only mildly freaking out right now instead of having a full-on breakdown?”

“Well, yeah, there’s that too,” she acknowledges. “But also, I feel like a week ago you would have made an excuse to keep seeing him even though he can use his ability again, and that would have just pulled us deeper into all of the unhealthy bullshit we’ve had with him. There’s still a lot of stuff that we need to process about the time we spent with him, but at least you’re not adding to it anymore. You’re moving forward.”

“It’s not like all of this hasn’t come with a price, though,” Mark says, remembering what Phoebus had said about how Varinia was only able to make him realize how much of a mistake he has made in his continued contact with Damien after she’d tried to fully separate from him. “You and I still have a lot to work through, too.”

“I know. And I know you’ve been working to reconcile the part of us that knows that having feelings for Damien is a bad idea. But that also means that I have to do the same for the part of us that did and maybe even still _does_ like him. We have to accept both parts no matter how much they contradict each other, and then come to an understanding from there.”

“Which means no more self-righteous ‘I told you so’s from you, right?”

“I’m just saying that I’m going to try to do a better job at listening to you and respecting your opinions, even when we don’t agree,” Varinia says. “And yeah, okay, maybe that means a little less judgment too.”

She nudges her nose against him as they ease back into the gestures of affection that were once so automatic for them. He puts an arm around her to encourage her to snuggle closer. She does so, albeit hesitantly, and Mark has not fully realized until now how much he has missed the warmth of her body pressed against him. There’s nothing like the strain of emotional distance to make him aware of how much he has taken for granted, especially now that he is picking up the shattered pieces of his mistakes and coming to terms with how far he has to go until he can consider himself even close to the neighborhood of “okay.”

“It’s okay that we’re not okay, you know,” Varinia says, following alongside his thoughts with a sentiment he is sure that Joan has expressed to her patients many times. “We’re… I don’t know, a work in progress. We’re still trying to find our place in the world again, and maybe that place is different from the one we had before all of this happened.”

“How wise of you.” He strokes her head gently. “But none of that stops me from still feeling broken,” he admits, voicing his back-of-the-mind worry that has been bothering him ever since getting out of the AM.

“You heard what Joanie said the other day, though. We’re not unsalvageable. Maybe a little bit of a fuck-up, but not unsalvageable.”

Mark lets out a small, hollow laugh. “I guess ‘not unsalvageable’ is the best we can hope for after everything we’ve been through, huh?”

He presses his face into Varinia’s fur and breathes deeply. Throughout all of the terror and trauma that he has experienced—the torture of being held at the AM, the isolation of being trapped in the past, and the uncertainty of being on the road with Damien—she has been the one constant that has always been by his side, for better and for worse. No one will ever know and understand him as deeply as she does, and so he needs to continue rebuilding his relationship with her if he wants to have even the slightest hope of figuring out everything else.

“I love you, you know that?” he says, expressing the self-affirmation that Joan has encouraged him and Varinia to share with each other more often.

“I love you too,” she replies. “And whatever comes next—”

“We’ll figure out how to handle it,” he finishes for her. The shadows of Damien and Wadsworth loom large in front of him, but he is no longer helpless to face them. He will find all of the strength and coping skills that he needs to eventually break free from the weight of what he has endured, and he will do it with his daemon at his side. “You and me, we’re going to get through it. Together.”


End file.
